


Some Like it Hot

by freelance_writes11



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine, Cuphead (Video Game), Disney - All Media Types, Disney Cartoons (Classic), Some Like It Hot (1959), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Genre: 1920s, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, Cartoon Physics, Crossdressing, Crossover, Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, Gang Violence, Gangsters, Implied/Referenced Homosexuality, Inspired by Some Like It Hot (1959), Jazz Age, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Romantic Comedy, Some Like It Hot AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 10:47:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22454905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freelance_writes11/pseuds/freelance_writes11
Summary: Down-on-his-luck private eye Eddie Valiant gets hired to investigate the acts in Prohibition-era Chicago after an assignment in Brooklyn left him with not an inkling left, but he’s soon in the mix with a pair of whiskey guzzlers who may do more harm than good for his next black-and-white case.When an idealistic gambling and sax swingin’ demon and bass-plucking wolf accidentally witness a gangland shooting, they quickly board a train to Florida disguised as the two newest (and homeliest) members of a jazz band.Their cover is perfect…until a lovelorn singer swings her way for the sax, an ancient penny pincher falls for a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and the king of the city is intent to keep his crown and wants to put anyone who stands in his way on ice for good.
Relationships: Alice Angel & Boris (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Alice Angel/Bendy (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Bendy & Boris (Bendy and the Ink Machine)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 32
Collections: Bendy and the Ink Machine (BATIM), Disney and NonDisney Prompts





	1. Putting the ‘FUN’ in Funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Potted palms, urns, frenetic dancing flappers, Scotch “coffee” cups… This was not the kind of funeral Eddie was expecting.

Every city had its own flavor, so to get to know it and find out what lay beneath the tourist veneer, you had to go out at night. That’s when real life began, the one conducted away from the bargaining chip of daylight. In the shadows, the straight jacket of the law was removed and all manner of things became possible. The streets belonged to the mob, prostitutes, and drug dealers. The homeless wandered, often in noisy exchanges with themselves. Even the cops stayed away unless there was a complaint from a taxpayer, and even then they came slowly.

There were those in the South Side with their exotic cars and luxury lifestyle, and those on Tripp Avenue drug addled, drunk, and abused. And yet everywhere the mantra was the same, everywhere the depression was just as thick. The same music played from the stores and the only smiles worn were by the corporate drones. The sidewalk for the most part was a smooth blur of concrete, albeit scattered with litter and the debris of tram wires strung from posts dangling at a two-story height, beyond the daily regard of pedestrians who walked with their heads down.

Chicago was a city of haves and have nots, changing every few minutes from affluence to poverty, with people quick to judge and slow to love in 1929.

The damp evening would begin and end with an indigo-swathed hearse, with so much leather around the driver that he could barely hear the engine idling. It sped along the boulevard where lampposts drooped and the starting night service was without a smile, rocking its two passengers side to side and occasionally making the spider toon put all six limbs − as opposed to eight from a past ‘agreement’ with the city next door − on the stainless steel coffin topped with snow white chrysanthemums.

One touch on the pedal from the unsmiling leadfoot and the car jerked forward, sneering at the speed limit and passing the high-beams in front of a black grille on the other side of the street. Burning white circles were little more than smudgy illuminations in the slanting rain, but beneath their glow was the dark bodywork of a police car. Its yellow-white headlights caught the dense license plate where the taillights sat unusually high off the ground and tipped upwards to the sky.

The first warning flashes glowed, but when the driver didn’t brake, sirens shook the dead streets. Without the accompanying cop lights on top, the driver would easily dismiss it and carry on. He and his boys had so much to do, so many customers to get to, and business was brisk. Faster than a Tommy gun, the hearse barreled down the hill, tires squealing with each pass, undertake, and weave. The wet tarmac was wide with only a light smattering of traffic, but not being on time was going to upset the boss and without his blessing, the whole gang could kiss their admissions goodbye.

From behind there was a blast of the siren and the bulky squad car leapfrogged in the mirror, headlights and gunfire glaring blindingly in the gathering gloom. If it wasn’t such a bad time, Charley would admire their spirit, but since it was clear the men in uniform wanted to become spirits themselves, he wasn’t taking a chance on anything.

Barley and Edgar only needed a single nod to tear off the car roof’s protector, revealing a thin hatch that fell open to a mobster’s Shangri-la: shotguns, forty-fives, grizzly Saturday-night specials, and other spraying gats. The single-eyed bruiser and antagonistic arachnid took a weapon of choice, smashed the back window, and had gunshots rent the still February air. No bullets were wasted, and there was none of this shooting in the air nonsense; back and forth a car suffered an unsealable scar or a graze thicker than a bite of frost.

A headlight was blown out, the bizarre music of bullets on windshield jangled the driver’s nerves, and one of them swore his life was less than a cent in someone’s bank account when the tires gave up and swung the entire vehicle off the road.

If you held up the Butcher Gang, it would cost you an arm and a leg.

Charley cackled at the retreating imagine of beat up metal in the rearview. “Boss normally don’t like taking chances on people like us, but he’ll be eating his words. We hit on all sixes tonight boys!”

No sooner did the cocksure brag escape the gangster’s mouth than the three all began breathing in a fragrance that only years concealed could achieve. Barley and Edgar shared a contemplating look before opening the now leaking coffin riddled with four to five holes. Edgar winced at the irreplaceable damage while Barley whistled a flat note.

“I wouldn’t jazz up our luck just yet,” the latter muttered, already lighting up a stress reliever to wedge between his teeth. “Poor sonuva bitch lost alotta juice. I ain’t payin’ for the next funeral.”

“It’ll be our funeral if we don’t cover it up genius,” Charley spat out, turning a corner and sloppily parking the gas-guzzler in front of a fire escape. He turned in his seat, squinting at the open casket. “How much did we lose?”

“Nine bottles. Three Scotch, six bourbon. You think Old Stripes will notice?” Edgar asked, a touch of nerves hopping in his voice as Charley honked a signal and jumped out to join the two in retrieving the shot up victims of bootlegged alcohol.

Barley grunted an incomplete response along with picking up one of the corners of the burial box. “We got the smell on our shoes now brother. Better we own up to it than pick lead out our teeth for tryin’ to make Stripes look dumb.”

“Yeah, and he don’t need no one else’s help for that. Guy’s a natural,” Charley berated.

All three let out a roar of laughter but snapped back to an off-color attitude when another of Stripes’ henchmen unchained the back gate to help move the goods in. The suited goons shuffled through the narrow walkway, nodding in respect to the suited tiger they eventually came across at a side door. His unblinking focus showed no emotion as he waited for the four to go inside so he could lock the entrance and make sure his men hadn’t been tailed. If there was one thing this king of the jungle hated, it was getting his hands dirty from stragglers who were averse to specific prerequisites.

In time to the hidden entryway closing off, a couple more doors opened. Familiar buggy doors with black grilles and blinding yellow-white headlights, all in good condition. Men of the law spilled out their vehicles, casing the joint just out of sight for those who grew wary around a badge but close enough to spring into action. The last squad car of the night had since been parked several meters from the building, and when the driver was given an A-Okay up ahead, he got out to open the doors for his fellow law-abiding partner.

Cigar smoke waltzed out with a rich oaky smell, hazy in the air and soon joining the bitter gusts of winter wind. Dressed to the nines, a young private dick exited the backseat, blowing out a new silvery-puffed cloud from the dry tobacco stick. He paced across the street in even strides, buffed and rain-slicked shoes gently squishing the sidewalk and creasing under a few straggling puddles flooding through the cracks.

“All right Pinky, tell it to me straight − that’s the joint? And get the hell out my pocket.”

A muffled chortle came out the P.I.’s coat sleeve and traveled uncomfortably to the back until his hat popped off and a tall, slinky pink panther was donning half of his uniform.

“Yes, sir. Wouldn’t lie to you. It’s all there in black and white.”

“Who runs it?

“Thought I already told you. You really shouldn’t smoke these things.” The feline popped the cigar away by spitting out a piece of chewed tobacco. “It clogs up the memory and makes you woozy.”

“No, alcohol will do that to ya, and like a hangover, you’re really testing my nerves. Refresh my memory on who runs this place.”

The panther shrugged, dipping the deerstalker cap in between his shoulders. “An old friend across the bend, Old Stripes. Got it as a birthday present for his twenty-fifth. Isn’t that something?” He spit out another thing of tobacco, picking his teeth with a toothpick flourished out of thin air. “If you really wanna give him a fright when you bust him, call him by his government name: Shere Khan. Ooh boy, he’ll love that! Or you can call ‘im Khan, Lord of the Jungle, Khanny too. I call him Khanny and he hates it. He goes by Stripes too, got this royal knack for Your Highness—”

“Stripes will do.” The detective took his cap back. “How do I get in?”

“Easy. Say, ‘I come to grandma’s funeral’ and you’re in like a virus. Oh!” The panther snapped his fingers, practically chasing his tail like a self-entertained pup. “I’ve got you an admission card somewhere in my pockets. Let’s see now…”

“That’s _my_ pockets you’re searching. Look, I haven’t got all night. Have you got the card or not?”

Like a cheap magic trick, the panther’s empty tail slunk behind the young gent’s ear, gave it a tug, and drew back with the admission card as promised.

“Thanks Pinky,” he said, exasperated. He took his coat back as well, refolding the sleeves. “Got anything else for me?”

“Sure. If you want a ringside table inside, just tell them you’re one of the pallbearers.”

“O.K. Pinky.”

The same officer that gave the okay to come forward approached the duo, tipping his hat to them both but focusing more on the detective.

“We’re all set sir. What’s the word and when’s the kickoff?” He announced, much too chipper.

“Boy, I’d love to stay and watch the game, but if Khanny sees me”—Panther made a slashing motion in front of his throat, clicking his tongue and bouncing his pupils into two Xs—“it’s goodbye Pinky.”

“Goodbye Pinky.” As he strolled off, the detective shoved a hand in his pocket, detaching the string the sly cat had knotted to his wallet while he had his coat. He wasn’t going to buy the ‘I was going to return it’ spiel and rolled his eyes. “Toons…”

“Want us to give you five minutes?” The officer asked patiently by his side.

“Yeah, then hit ’em with everything you got.”

Eddie Valiant was a strong man in wit, perception, and intelligence. Not so much in muscular definition due to his lack of training, but his late Roaring 20s glow showed everyone he was still in the game. The light coming from the windows of a fit little shack called Mozzarella’s Funeral Parlor made his pale skin shine and his stubble-covered chin seem darker. Inside, Eddie found himself surrounded by the usual floral choices for funerals − lilies, orchids, carnations, roses − and noted a humanoid toon about hip-level eyeing each flower. Far off in the corner an unmoved organist hunched over the keys, pressing out a somber tune. The proprietor arranging a funeral spray, a short Apennine wolf who Eddie was not expecting to be Mr. Mozzarella, sprung up to greet him.

“Welcome, my dear boy. Call me Mr. Mozzarella or Mozzie for short. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve come to the old lady’s funeral.”

“You’ve come to the…” One of the wolf’s ears perked up in time to his head tilting. “Are you certain you have the right parlor? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you at our services before.”

“I’ve been on the wagon. Where’s the wake taking place? I’m supposed to be one of the pallbearers and I’ve been driving through the rain all night. Don’t you think I should have a moment to pay my respects?”

The owner’s other ear perked up before relaxing as he nodded quickly, fingertips pressed together in either a nervous habit or anticipating gesture. “But of course, my boy! Mister Frees, show him into the chapel. Pew number three.”

The toon was right by Eddie’s side, a glove on his back and already moving him. It wasn’t that long of a walk, maybe four or five steps down. The organist paid them no mind and took a minute to pause his tune to reach over to the end of the keyboard and pull out a stop, triggering an ordinary panel in the wall to shift to the right.

An instantaneous contrast from both the unforgiving chill outside and the dreary front part of the parlor Eddie was in exploded before his eyes. Laughter nearly overpowered the jazz band putting their hearts and souls into “[Sweet Georgia Brown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sniVtlvTT48)” for the patrons and six gorgeous flappers jumping along to the swing. Dirty conversations swirled in dirtier clouds of cigarette smoke, hints of sick and heated romance tainted the fragrance of the brilliantly lit speakeasy, and jokes so loud and stupid they were golden topped the night right off.

Eddie actually thought he would collapse from the overdose of noise, excitement, color, and secrecy the joint was giving him. He felt like he was walking through a hodgepodge of something straight out of a comedy film, and as the “door” slid shut behind him, he couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t chosen to go into law, would he have tried to find ways around Prohibition through means such as this?

“Grandma must have been quite the person,” he called above the noise to Mister Frees, whose hand was now on his shoulder to guide him down the steps.

Eddie took a seat at a small table right in view of the band and three of the closest chorus girls. He blinked hard every time they kicked or swayed their hips, fearing one hype move would go too far and he’d be on a blind date with someone’s shoe.

A skunk waiter with his tail shiny and slick tended to him in the next minute. “What can I get you this evening, _monsieur_?”

Eddie jumped straight to business. “Booze.”

 _“Non monsieur,_ sorry. We only serve coffee.”

“I’m sorry?”

“We only serve coffee here. Scotch coffee, Canadian coffee, sour-mash coffee…”

“Scotch then. Make it a demitasse with soda on the side. And another thing,” Eddie swiftly added before the waiter could fetch his order, “haven’t you got another pew not so close to the band? How about that one over there?”

The skunk shook his head. “That’s reserved for members of the immediate family.”

He shuffled away after an exaggerated wink. Eddie was no fool to need an extra nudge towards understanding wordplay, but he certainly wasn’t going to be sitting so close to the stage for long, or staying in such a headache-inducing, smoke and liquor saturated place with dames flaunting outfits pin-up models would blush at.

Good God, he thought like he was fifty but was barely close to thirty!

He reached around his coat pockets for the familiar spare cigar to calm his agitation, surprised that Pinky hadn’t tried snatching it earlier, and scoped the room, having to give the place props to look, smell, and feel like an actual clip joint in such a closed off area. His gaze lingered on the Reserved table a bit too long, noticing a small pig standing by it with a coffee cup in hand, bopping his head offbeat to the band and smiling like he wasn’t sure if he should be enjoying himself or not.

The detective’s luck ripened when the presumed immediate family filed down a staircase from the outside of an archway leading who knows where, heading for the table. In the lead was an anthropomorphic tiger in a pressed suit showing the way to his lackeys, all diverse and wearing equally impressive suits − a spider with strangely only six legs, another humanoid toon who seemed to have immensely vague chimp facial features, a cross between a pirate and a sailor with a white beard and an eyepatch for his right eye, a coyote, and two moray eels with discolored eyes.

Eddie dropped his gaze, knowing a mobster when he saw one and knowing that they could sniff out a sleuth like bloodhounds. He did have to look back up out of curiosity when a brief ruckus disturbed the table, and the eels were forcing the pork drunkard off while he waved his cup in the air, shouting “I want another cup of coffee!” over and over around a noticeable stutter. When the remaining five removed their hats and took their seats, the tiger snatched a handkerchief out the coyote’s breast pocket and leaned down to blot near his shoes.

“Guess Stripes doesn’t like spots,” Eddie couldn’t help but joke under his breath. He returned his attention to the band just as the server returned with his drink. “Better bring me a check in case someone raids the place.”

The waiter did a double take, brows knit together with confusion and surprise. “Who in their right mind would raid a funeral?”

The undercover inspector lifted his piping hot Scotch coffee in the air in a silent toast, taking in everyone from the soused and the sober to the carefree and the _very_ carefree who had no qualms at all, temporarily protected in their bubble of fun.

“Some people got no respect for the dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s the first chapter folks! I hope you’ve enjoyed so far. I’ve had this cartoon collaboration in mind for a while, and since “Some Like it Hot” is my most obsessed over Marilyn Monroe movie, why not throw in a plot with some beloved characters, both old and new?
> 
> So you won’t be confused, here’s how I plan this story to work: Bendy and Boris will be making an appearance in the next chapter and they’ll be the main focus and following the plot of the movie. Eddie (and eventually Cuphead & Mugman) will have their own side story that ties in with chasing down the runaway sax and bass, and the fearsome Shere Khan will pop in every now and then, also connected to the plot of “Some Like it Hot” with his own separate actions that tie in.


	2. Swing ‘n Shout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A swingin’ sax player and plucking baritone bass man are in for more than their usual night high of smokin’ the law.

As the musicians improvised on stage in the smoky haze, jazz dancing out of their instruments in that swinging rhythm, on the bandstand a hepcat’s foot began to tap and his head nodded and swayed. He looked over the ‘mourners’ as he clutched his saxophone, figuring there must’ve been at least one hundred tonight, bathing in the hot lights of the hangout and getting drunk off the thrill of rebellion and intoxicating primal need for company.

No one could see the floor. It was wall to wall of dancers, smokers, drinkers and gamblers like him, betting high against the law and loving every second of it. They were all grins and some looked like star-crossed idiots, but they didn’t care. Inside everyone was just happy and more alive than they could ever be.

The Charleston-dancing bright young things knew how to roll down their stockings and get the audience craving for faster movement, jiving to the latest crazes and exposing more knee, leg and thigh with each shimmy, kick and twirl.

Bendy really felt the big cat inside of him about to come out and play, and he welcomed the vibe of the song urging his body to go free and eyed the six cheesecakes dancing circles around his heart. Their winks and split second breaks to wave only improved the presto of his performance, and he gazed almost longingly to each curly brunette when his own break in the song came and he couldn’t easily throw a tempting token right back.

The grinning demon knew he must’ve had his head too high in the clouds if he had to be tapped on the shoulder four times to hear a simple question: “Say Bendy, we’re getting down to business?”

His mind was hiring for a completely different business as a smirk wired his face. “I’ll say.”

“What? No, I mean tonight’s the night we get paid, right?”

“Sure is.”

The lean wolf of a bass player whistled a little tune of relief, thumping the bass-fiddle at his side. “Oh, ain’t that swell? The minute it’s lights out, I’m heading to bed and then straight to the dentist first thing in the morning.”

Bendy’s attention finally snapped away from moving legs at the mention of money. “The dentist? You’re gonna have a couple extra aces burning a hole in your pocket and the first thing you do is blow your paycheck on your teeth?”

“Two in the back have been bothering me for days. It’s just a filling, you see. I-It doesn’t have to be gold.”

“‘ _It doesn’t have to be gold, hur-hur._ ’” Bendy smacked the head of the string instrument. “Boris-boy, how can you be so selfish? You know we’re up to our chins in debt and unless we cough somethin’ up, we’ll be choked before we do. We owe back rent! We borrowed a dollar too high from every girl in the dance line and keep tripping over those lawyers’ tails all because a check bounced at the laundromat. You know the game.”

“And I’m sick of being tagged ‘it’ all the time,” Boris stressed between his teeth. “We’ve been playin’ hopscotch back in Brooklyn far too long. They’ll never give us another shot. We would’ve been coughing a few things up if it hadn’t been for that three-state skip across the pond and a toss of ‘I say jump, you say how high.’”

“ _Bah!_ Stop it already with that playground mumbo jumbo. You pluck a bass and right now you’re plucking my nerves.”

“Okay, forget about it then. Forget all I just said.” Not wanting the night to end on a flat note, Boris realigned his face and shrugged one shoulder. “Let’s start over. I won’t be selfish. First thing tomorrow we’ll pay everybody a little something on account. How’s that sound?”

“Oh no we don’t. First thing tomorrow,” Bendy corrected, unfolding something from out his pocket, “we head down to the dog track and put it all on Greased Lightning.”

Instead of the head of an instrument, Boris bopped an actual one. “Says you! I’m not putting my first week’s pay on some mutt.”

“He’s a shoo-in, Mister Frugal.” The ink-colored demon slapped the creased flyer to the freckled muzzle, crossing his arms in confidence. “Max the Waiter’s got cahoots seein’ that his brother-in-law’s the electrician that wires the rabbit.”

“You’ve gone down the rabbit hole if you think I’m letting you touch my money.”

“What’re you so afraid of? His odds are 10 to 1. He’s in good shape, so we’re in good shape. We’ll have enough to pay everybody back and then some.”

“Suppose he loses. Suppose this job doesn’t work out in the long run and we’re back to stealing ham from the butcher’s and making queen beds out of cardboard in the alleyway.”

The tension was evident in Boris’s voice no matter how laced up in exasperation he wanted it to be. Bendy glanced over to the band still swinging and the girls still hopping, then took the crook of his arm to inch him back.

“You don’t have to paint everything so black anymore,” he insisted as gently as he could above the noise. “You don’t see me coating things in ink, do ya? Droning like a buzzsaw, ‘suppose we got hit by a truck’ or ‘suppose the stock market crashes.’”

Boris rolled his eyes and tucked his ears away so he wouldn’t have to hear as much, but his attention was baited on something shiny in the crowd. The golden badge of an agent. Its edges were being used to shave off excess char on a lengthy cigar, and the young man who was about to inhale the contents hid it in his coat as quickly as Boris had spotted it. His stomach was swirling faster than the perfect ring of smoke around the private dick’s hat, and his body faced the nearest exit while his head turned to Bendy.

“Suppose Jessica Rabbit divorces Roger Rabbit,” the imp was still rambling, oblivious to Boris calling his name. “Suppose Warner Bros. loses $22 million dollars. Suppose Chicago River overflows!”

“Bendy… Well don’t look now, but the whole town is underwater.”

Boris’s eyes returned to the smoking officer while Bendy turned to see what he was talking about. The roll of tobacco was spinning in between the man’s pointer and middle finger, specks of ash occasionally falling off the tip. When his dark stare flit up to the boys, he barely gave a nod of acknowledgement before looking elsewhere. The pair exchanged a wordless agreement and put away their instruments with the same cool pace they used when their all-nighters were over.

From outside the speakeasy came a peculiar, horror movie inspired sound. It was like a lowly animal desperate to get in, and it grew louder and louder until it became a spine tingling thud. Splinters from the no longer secret entrance flew everywhere as police axes ate through the wood. The music fumbled to a stop, women screamed, and customers, the chorus girls and waiters scrambled for the side doors, but they too were soon splintering under the assault of the axes. Fear buzzed through the charged air as the crowd moved like a multi-headed beast that shared only one brain, their thoughts in lockstep as much as their feet.

Bendy and Boris had street smarts as well as police smarts and were two steps ahead of the game they wouldn’t be ‘it’ in this time around. They had laid their instruments flat and hid behind a portion of the stage that sloped in the back and eventually curled around to the four steps that lead up, careful to not be in view of the officers rushing in.

“Some kids don’t learn. Alright everyone, stop right where you are!” The undercover P.I. stood center stage, still twirling his cigar. “You’ve been caught red handed, so we’re doing things the easy way and letting my buddies take care of you.”

“You’re all under arrest!” A much too eager cop shouted.

Most attempted to flee, but the chaos was immediate and the lively atmosphere had transformed into sheer terror. Some swore they had nothing to lose and dove to the back alleys to escape on foot or find their cars parked in the shadows, only to find the exits blocked. A rare few stayed to fight or defend themselves, but it wasn’t enough to stop the arrests.

Bendy and Boris shared another look, planning on leaving when the tide of confused customers and employees pulled back and they could sneak off without being trampled. Six pairs of dress shoes clipped in front of them, and Boris had to force back his hollow gasp with both his hands and Bendy’s pressured to his mouth, the slight ache of his back teeth the least of his worries.

“Didn’t you hear? Services are over. Let’s go.”

But the detective wasn’t addressing the musicians. His back and three other policemen were to them, and at just the right angle Bendy could make out the torso of his and Boris’s ‘supervisor’ sitting five feet up.

“Where are we going?” The tame yet venomous voice of the head mobster asked.

“To a little country club that has your name written all over it. It’s for retired bootleggers, and I think you and your boys will fit like a glove.”

“I don’t join anything without the proper paperwork.”

“Oh, but you’ll love it there. No paperwork needed. I’ll even fix the prison tailor with a couple extra bucks to fit you with your own pair of special spats − stripes. All out of spots,” the P.I. daringly added, a grin not welcome in the tiger’s presence popping up on the edge of his voice.

Claws shot out to trace an injury on the table rather than on skin. “How delightful. What have I done this time?”

“You of all people don’t want to take in the glory of your work?” The detective scoffed, taking a moment to inhale his cigar. “You’ve been embalming people with coffee since ’23, eighty-six proof.”

“Me, embalming people? I’m but a customer here.”

“Curtains down, exit stage left,” an impatient bee policeman snapped. “We know you own the joint Stripes, and that that Mozzarella guy’s just frontin’ for you.”

Bendy could see the puzzlement on Shere Khan’s face from where he was crouched, but anybody who knew this member of the family down to the bones knew he hardly expressed emotions related to the seven deadly sins. Slipping up was as scarce as his body language, but the same couldn’t be said for what he would do if he were ever double crossed.

“Mozzarella, you say?” Khan shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

“Oh no?” The private dick challenged. “A little birdie told me otherwise.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a little kitten instead?” Khan rose with hidden intent but kept his tail nice and steady. “A scrawny ‘Pinky’ little Panther, maybe?”

“A scrawny ‘Pinky’ little Panther, you say? Never heard of him. And this”—The detective took one of the glasses from the table, giving it a tentative sniff—“this is new. You’re craving something stronger than coffee?”

“Yeah, buttermilk,” the one-eyed scruff sneered.

The detective huffed out something either of amusement or disdain, but Bendy didn’t care which it was and nudged Boris’s side so they could start slinking away.

“You were smart to bring your own stuff,” Mister Private Eye was complimenting, “but that’s the only token of respect you’ll get from me Stripes, dead or alive.”

“Me dead or alive, or the other way around?” Khan tossed the challenge right back with enough suave to wobble anyone off balance, but this P.I. was set and stone, hardcore.

“On your feet,” he ordered. “That goes for you and any other fellas you got slithering around here.” 

Khan shrugged as his men complied without fail. “You’re just wasting the taxpayers’ money.”

“Sing it to your lawyer,” the bee officer retorted, he, his partners, and the P.I. leading the rest of the men out.

The seething mass of entertainers, drunks, and thrill-seekers were still jostling and protesting as they were forced down the wide avenue and into the back of several paddy wagons, and like candles being blown out, soon all that was left were wisps of smoke from the exhaust pipes of eager retreating squad cars.

The silence was an eerie sort of tranquility, but instead of being soothed, Bendy and Boris’s senses heightened and their breath seemed to die out as soon as it left their mouths in relieved pants. They still felt like prey even though no predator could be detected as they took turns climbing down the rusted ladder of the fire escape they had hid on. A random hearse in their favor was conveniently parked within jumping distance, and soon there wasn’t a car or person on the lot for miles − that they could see anyway.

Bendy’s slick shoes and Boris’s bare paws jogged over the uneven wet stones now muddy from multiple tires rushing over them until they were both a good spot away from the building.

“Well doesn’t that beat all?” Boris muttered, handing Bendy one of two overcoats they were lucky enough to have gotten in time before the swarm carried outside. He buttoned his own up tight to his neck. “Now we don’t have to worry ourselves sick over who we pay first. ‘Suppose this job doesn’t work out in the long run.’ Boy, I really jinxed us back there. Sorry pal.”

Bendy shook his head and ground his teeth against the rising cold. “Shut up, I’m thinking.”

“Of course the landlady’s gonna lock us out with all the fuss on the streets. It’s gonna scare her silly. Swingin’ sax and baritone bass? Never heard of those fellas. They’re out a job, done for. Survived a raid but we’re still under attack.”

“Shadd _up_ , I’m still thinkin’.”

Bendy gave up on the top buttons, too numb and agitated to properly bundle. His mind spun with possibilities faster than a movie reel and his foot tapped faster than a hit from a shot of whiskey.

“I wonder how much good ole Petey would give us for our overcoats,” he quietly mused, but not quiet enough for Boris to shoot him an incredulous look. “Then if we piled that on top of the dough we made tonight…”

“Nothing doing! Get that no-good dog out your mind already,” Boris interrupted with another bop to the head. “We’re not putting a penny or a coat on him.”

“You’re just antsy we’ll bet big and win bigger, and that that doubt of yours will make you look like a jackass. He’s 10 to 1 like I said buddy. Just think, by tomorrow we’ll have enough for _twenty_ overcoats and then some.”

“‘And then some’ he says. Bendy…” Boris sighed and fixed up his buddy’s lopsided buttoning, searching for the right words to say. He couldn’t dissuade the gambler once his mind was set, but he had to plop some healthy common sense on that money-hungry appetite of his somehow. “Look, we’re dancing with Lady Luck and she’s stepping on our toes. I don’t want anything bad happening to us while we’re still able to blow.”

“Don’t sweat it.” Bendy pat what he could reach of Boris’s back and led him away from the street. “Soon ‘debt’ will sound foreign to our ears and we can still do what we love without tripping over any tails or borrowing another dollar. Now let’s find someplace to crash.”


	3. Numb to the Traitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One strikes in the act of pleasure, the other stalks for means of survival. But who can you really trust when both share a simple pastime that begins with ‘K’?

On the streets were nothing crisp, pretty or clean, just old snow that had become matted and stained in dark gray from the pollution belched out by passing cars. That special pale light only a winter’s sun could give struggled in the dense skies above, making the morning as overcast as a late afternoon. The rain from the previous night had made everything shine and glow with slippery ice, and it was clear that if it had rained again, snow would fall instead of water.

If the cold wasn’t bitter and his skin wasn’t raw and the dress pants between the edge of his suit and boots weren’t soaked through, it would have been a perfect day for Shere Khan.

 _Bitterly cold and humid, such an enchanting combination_ , his thoughts sang in false grace as he prowled contentedly through the boroughs of Chicago, completely untouchable beneath the winter-chilled clouds.

He gazed out in the distance, seeing a low fog clinging to nothingness and hiding homes at the top of the street. He felt it too − winter’s breath on his skin, trying to chill his blood, trying to sink into the marrow of his bones like wet concrete. It whisked heat away, leaving him cold, yes, though his blood ran warm. Soon a series of rectangles constructed of steel and glass sloped towards a dugout-like grove, with no sentimentality for the old ways. The door was scratched and denuded with chipped brown varnish while the brass-colored locks and knob dulled with age. Breathing in the numbing air, Khan knocked.

“Ooh! Oh, now what? I’ll be right down!”

The one on the other thinly-walled side seemed furious to be disturbed away from whatever activity they had been engaged in and hit the wall with all their strength on the way down. Rustling came quietly at first from the inside, then there was silence until Khan repeated the knock, louder this time. The same voice shouted something muffled despite practically kissing the door, but Khan chose not to reply.

When the door finally opened, the pastel swirls of a merciful, blissful, and widely sadistic gaze caught the blinding February light. Two elongated fangs almost curled in on the protesting tongue hissing in distaste, but it only took a minute more for the light to adjust and for the Indian python to fix his usual predatory glower into a cunning smirk.

“Shere Khan, what a surprise!”

The serpent spoke with a soft, entrancing tone behind a solid but tolerable lisp. He was coiled up in the archway of the door but slowly began to lower himself, his golden scales glinting in the light. If he wanted, he could easily tower over the striped feline, but he always preferred looking at whatever struck his fancy right in the eye.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Khan replied without skipping a beat. “I had presumed I’d be detained from my services for more than a day, but I’m glad those gentlemen in blue could reach a mutilated− er, _mutual_ understanding with me. I just dropped by to have a word with you, if you don’t mind. Now forgive me if I’ve interrupted anything.”

“Oh no, no, nothing at all.” The brown-spotted body silently thumped to the floor and the tip of a tail pushed the door open wide. “Make yourself at home, Your High _ness_.”

The den was as if someone had just moved in. It was sparsely furnished like the furniture was being manufactured, and the walls were wood on wood in every shade of brown. The windows streaming in cold beams of sunlight were either boarded up or suffocated by linen to keep heat in, and a staircase further to the right led up to a dust-ridden production of darkness. Opened notebooks, drawn on past due bills, and stacks of paper mixed in with one another on a desk in the corner, being held down by half empty bottles like a paperweight.

Khan ran a paw over a worn bookshelf collapsing in on itself, the shelves bursting with complex novels and expired subscriptions. If one were to see the home through his eyes, they maybe would have said it was a typical addict’s room.

“Are you going to make things quick, or should I start hibernating?” The impatient reptile murmured just loud enough, twirling in on itself to conserve body heat.

“You always knew how to be hospitable,” Khan commented, unsheathing his claws on the left paw to toy with. “I had no idea if you were home or not and thought perhaps you were entertaining someone up there in your coils.”

“Coils? Someone? Oh no, I was just curling up for my siesta.”

“Are you saying I’m mistaken? I could’ve sworn I heard you singing to someone.” Khan didn’t need to lean forward or raise a brow to show his want to prod for more. “Your walls are as thin as my patience right about now. Who is it, Kaa? Who’s here with you?”

The secretive snake waved his tail, further snuggling into his scales and flicking his forked tongue thoughtfully. The longer Khan stared, the tighter Kaa constricted a nonexistent heat to have as his own and the more slanted his eyes shrunk.

“Ah, you don’t trust me,” he all but whispered, hissing in stale melancholy at the ground. “I was just singing to myself. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“In a way.”

“Yes…yes, you see I have…trouble with my sinuses.”

Khan sniffed once. “What a pity.”

“Oh, you have no idea. It’s simply terrible. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep.” Kaa had suddenly moved in closer with those golden-yellow eyes that looked so deeply into Khan’s. His breathing softened, and the pensive look melted into something almost harmless. “So I _ssssssing_ myself to sleep. You know, self-hypnosis.”

Khan’s tail squirmed just barely as the muscles in the back of his legs tautened. “You expect me to believe a snake charmer?”

“In a way,” Kaa echoed the tiger. His eyes were as open and honest as a child, defusing the nascent rays from the sun trying to break through. “Let me show you how it works.”

The air of the house fizzled into something unpleasantly deep and warm, swirling with a hint of lenity like a bad quality cartoon struggling to correct its resolution. Khan felt his side seize up, but he could still breathe − he just couldn’t move if he wanted to do so properly. The only pops of color were an abstract painting on one wall and the earthy soil color of the snake’s underbelly. Khan’s left paw shot out, nearly puncturing several scales that should have been protected by smooth skin but foolishly lay open.

“My father warned me about tempting drugs in the streets,” he enunciated every word with esteem while shaking off his claws, repulsed, “but never about the ones with the yellow eyes and a heart that beats, so I had to learn for myself. You know I can’t be bothered with that. I have no time for that nonsense.”

Around the cuts and crimson painting his thin skin, Kaa swallowed. “ _Ssssssssome_ other time, perhaps?”

“Perhaps when there’s enough heat for the both of us to share. But at the moment, I’m searching for a kitty.”

Kaa wheezed out a laugh, stretching over to one of the cluttered tables for something to wipe the blood off. “Ain’t we all, kid?” He mocked the urban hub with an exaggerated accent.

“I know you’d like this new cat crawling the streets. He’s as slippery as you when it comes to information, foul and forever entrapped in his own colorful world where red in the dark isn’t welcome.” There was a hiss of sadistic delight and heated warning to go no further in description than that. “To call him one of my own brings a venom worse than yours in my mouth,” Khan added bitterly. “He is not one of my kind.”

“You don’t like him?”

“I never did.”

“You despise him?”

“Now don’t flatter the boy. Use a better word than that.”

“Khan, I have hours to waste but I prefer them not to be with you. What do you want with me? I don’t like you.”

These three words offended the tiger. Kaa could instill fear in man with a single gaze. He was trigger-happy in his own figurative and literal cold blooded ways, always singing the right words and twisting the right strings for his prey to bestow their trust and allow him to devour them unexpectedly. But when it came to the final countdown, that was where the backbone couldn’t bend any further.

“You’ve lured men and women into the jaws of fate without a conscience. You sing immoral remedies that the Devil would grovel at, and you say you don’t like me?” Khan spit out the last few words like repeating them made him physically ill. “Kaa, the least you can do is curse my name with the Sin of Wrath Himself as witness to your rage. Demean me in the proper key, not with these schoolhouse prods.”

The python griped in full disdain, discarding a bloodied cloth to the side, but the scarlet stream still ran down his throat. “Egotistic is spelt with a ‘tic’.”

“And dangerous is not without ‘us’, is it not? You’re a viper of your own accord Kaa. You are my ears and eyes in this concrete jungle, a dishonorable beast.”

Khan stopped the honeyed words when Kaa expected him to. He watched his eyes shade over in their usual somber demeanor like he expected them to and glared when that damned condescending and knowing smile spread flawlessly like silk, driving him crazy like he expected it to.

What he hadn’t expected was for blood to start leaking around the large cat’s teeth and over freshly cold lips, escaping as if it never knew it was welcome to stay. Khan pressed snugly against the opened wounds on Kaa’s scales to provoke the free-flowing thread, all the friendly shapes of his words in the cruel dawn replaced by their sinister counterparts. The bleeding continued, stark red in the daylight. Kaa wished it would stop.

“But you’re clumsy, _irritable_ , and in one swift move”—Khan’s teeth shone in the light cast by the newly risen sun, and it was Kaa this time who was mesmerized that he failed to cast his gaze as high as the tiger’s unsmiling eyes—“you lose sight from your primary objective.”

Another hiss, this one muted from close proximity, lodged itself in Kaa’s throat. “And what would that be?”

“I’m searching for a pink panther. Now where do you suppose he could be?”

“That thin toothpick? What do you want with him?”

“Come now, you know what holiday is coming up. The one that mis-teaches the youth what _love_ is.” Khan’s tail bussed under Kaa’s chin when he stressed the word. “Enticing them to be greedy and inculcate insecurities. I think he’s overdue for a card that’ll surely send his heart flying. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I know the answer can’t be bought from a store.”

Kaa returned to preserving his body heat, hiding the wound made worse by Khan first so it could heal. “And you just assume I’ll know and tell?”

“I don’t assume. When you do happen to see him, you will inform me first.” The snake’s chin was under a single claw’s assault this time, being teasingly scratched but full bloody intent was behind the solo weapon if the wrong thing was promised. “Understand?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” was the python’s earnest word.

Khan smirked. “In good show.”


	4. If it Looks Like a Duck, Swims Like a Duck, and Quacks Like a Duck…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of a job and in the middle of no winter wonderland, Bendy has to swallow his pride if he and Boris wanna see another hot meal.

There was nothing friendly about Chicago snow. It came with nature’s determination in the hours the city slept, bringing more flakes than it would ever make sense to count. No one thought anything of it when the sun streamed through their windows, but while the skies were clear, the ground certainly wasn’t. The radio had been announcing the storm of the decade days prior and advised all to avoid the outdoors if they could and prepare for the harsh elements.

The youth was out on the streets struggling to get home, the homeless scuttled toward vacant alleyways with no home to get to, and those all the way down in the South Side didn’t have words to describe the temperature and weather. Their fancy threads and synthetic fabrics gave no protection against even a spring breeze, let alone the bitter onslaught of winter.

They had never experienced a cold hell, but they at least had something to work with.

Boris growled each time a half-ice pellet bounced off his shoulder or stuck inside his unprotected ears, he and Bendy barren of any overcoats with only the collars of their suits turned up against the chill and their barely-together scarves flapped silently on their chests. He had anticipated the coldness and sting of driven snow on his face, but not the ferocity of the wind and how the light nearly blinded him. All he could do was bow his head, hope that his boiling over would keep him from freezing over, and keep walking.

“Greased Lightning… _Greased_ Lightning!” The lid of the canine’s potted temper bubbled over. “Oh, why do I listen to you? I oughta have my head examined. No wonder ‘debt’ sounds like ‘dead’ with some sorry lisp. We’re as good as dead now!”

Bendy’s feet were beginning to freeze and his footsteps were small, sinking in past his ankles with each stride. “I thought you weren’t talking to me.”

“I’m not. I’m talking to myself.”

“You addressed me there. Now you are talking to me.”

“I am not! I’m talking to myself. No more Lindy Hoppin’ with Lady Luck. She’s hitched a ride somewhere better, somewhere hotter. And this stupid snow…” Boris gestured angrily to his cased instrument, shoving the scarf back up his muzzle. “Look at the bull fiddle! It’s dressed warmer than I am. I said, ‘Bendy old pal, get that no-good dog outta your head before it gets us in trouble. We’re not betting a single nickel on the thing.’ But did he listen?”

“Thought it was a single penny we weren’t betting. We suddenly got five cents richer?”

Boris scowled out in the distance. “I’m not talking to you.”

Bendy let out a slow controlled breath and started walking backwards so his eyes wouldn’t be forced to squint, turning every once in a while to check the path. _Damn_ , everywhere there was light and the usual landmarks were hidden behind white that swirled so dangerously. Melted snow slid down his suit in between his scarf, and he could feel his blood becoming icy along with his body.

_We shouldn’t have started searching. Not in this weather._

Disorientation was a given at any moment, then he and Boris would stop shivering altogether, forget where they were going, and soon the cold was a killer. Familiar glows of candlelight in homey windows reflected tantalizingly in Bendy’s eyes, and the scents of eggs, ham, and maybe piles of fried potatoes reassured those who had to wait in line for a hot meal that they wouldn’t be disappointed. But the unluckier ones who could barely afford half a cup of coffee were bullied and taunted by the smells that dared them to get closer so they could be told off by the ill-tempered chef.

A couple hours ago Bendy’s stomach had growled nonstop, but now it was silent and had more of a slow gnawing inside, leaving him drained, empty, and incapable of a cheery conversation. But he knew if he and Boris stayed on the right path and kept their heads up and eyes peeled, it was only a matter of time before they could warm up and they’d be seeing green in no—

“Are you kidding! They’re serving roasted duck in there?”

No time. Literally no time, for the city’s main diner was halfway packed with cute waitresses and hungry folks from the North Side. Bendy actually reached out as if to guide himself forward, but his glove was swallowed by the snow and he had to narrow his eyes until they were almost shut.

He shook his head. “Go _lly_ , didn’t breakfast just start?”

Boris fit a palm over his face, equally as hungry but not for pneumonia. “Bendy, focus. What street are we on now? Where are we going?”

“To an old… _old_ friend, I guess.”

In an even (and excruciating) twenty minutes, the flakes fell a little slower, the air had temporarily stilled, and the fog melodramatically revealed the front of a towering Burnt Sienna building. Bendy bit the corner of his mouth hard when Boris muttered a quiet “are you sure?” Of course he was sure and he hated how sure he was.

The amount of egotistical, financial inflation and dependability flowing through those semi-warm hallways made nausea claw at his throat. He could only take so many strolls on easy street before needing a detour, but even then the shortcuts and hunger pains dragged him back to walk under those semi-warm rays of hope that was indeed the grandeur of a certain self-made old quack.

It didn’t help that the bricked exterior, secretaries forever in a state of half organized clutter, and mahogany desks with three drawers only on the right hand side took Bendy and Boris hostage for a joy ride down memory lane.

Bendy staggered back when Boris swung open the door to the agency with hostile-like fervor, guessing he had strayed from reality a second too long. He gave his shoulders a hard wiggle and slackened his stride to a more casual pace. It was a decent effort, enough to fool a casual observer, but he was a walking advert for tension and if Boris didn’t get the memo that stress was making a full course meal out of him, then he didn’t know what he could do to make his pal understand.

The little devil’s pie-shaped eyes scanned with alertness, picking up telephones ringing behind closed doors and typewriters clicking feverishly inside open offices. One gloved hand remained clenched to his instrument while the other’s knuckles rapped on the glass of a door.

“Anything today?” He asked hopefully.

The poodle secretary, while on hold on a telephone, shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Thank you.”

Bendy shuffled down to the neighboring office, stealing so many gazes out the corner of his eye at Boris it was damn near criminal. His face was still buried deep in the tattered scarf despite the growing stain of melted snow and damp morning breath.

“Anything today?” Bendy repeated to a butterfly.

“Nothing.”

“Thank you.”

The pattern was repeated verbatim for a good seven minutes, sparking the match closer and closer to the short fuse of the demon’s patience. He was sure he’d asked the same secretary the same thing maybe three times too many, and the 50/50 chance he’d heard a fumbled “yes” somewhere in between the clacking typewriters hammered and drilled into his skull to _go back and check for sure_. But keeping count and moving forward required concentration, and that was definitely something his empty stomach could only allow one of at the moment, not both.

By the twelfth or so “anything today/nothing/thank you”, the entire first floor and half of the second floor had trails of wet bootprints and a flash of black invading the hallways. Boris desperately wanted to move on to the next scene and grabbed Bendy’s elbow to lead him away from the staircase leading to the third floor.

“Bendy, will you stop and think for a second?” He half scolded, half begged.

“Can’t. Last time I did, it cost me a quick buck and my tail.”

“Well just open your ears for a second. Who’s to say McDuck will find us something when half our backbone got thrown in the big house? Who’s to say he won’t be bumping gums with us when he sees how desperate we really are this time?”

“Look, if you gave me another chance, we could be living like kings. You and that Lady Luck talk drove me up the wall, but you know what’ll drive us up to the banks?”

Boris slapped a hand over his face. “Oh no…”

“Oh _yes_.” Yet another creased and soft flyer was out Bendy’s pocket faster than the grin popping on his face. “Galloping Ghost, 15 to 1. It’s his kind of track and he’s running in third. A real mudder! If we hock your bass and my sax, I’m thinkin’ we could get at least—”

“If my arm wasn’t frozen, I’d slug you all the way to first and we’d win real big then. You’re out of your mind! We’re up the creek and you wanna hock the paddle.”

“At least I’m still thinking. If anything the flatfoot owes us,” the risk taker added irritably, blindly following the wolf down the hallway. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if he’d loan his attention like how he sleeps with his money − all the time. But if you wanna freeze, fine. What do I care?”

An office unlike any other, glorious in its inception and serving to remind clients of the bureau’s amenities and achievements, sprung into view at the very end of the hall. Amber light streamed around it in an even course, accentuating its ability to be four spaces larger than the shoebox-sized posts on the levels below it. If it wanted to, it could have its own private floor in the building and still not be large enough to make the old bird’s heart sing. 

Bendy wanted to spit he was so caught up in things, but instead he marched forward and swung the door open, wanting to shake the secretary indulging in her cola and lounging in her chair like she was a hot dame on the beach.

“Exhausted from makin’ all these calls?” He snapped, eyeing the untouched phone bitterly.

Fluffing her hair and taking another sugary swig, the brunette in blue matched the sneering sarcasm with a challenging smirk. “Nothing short of it darlin’. Come back with another foot in the door and I may have somethin’ new—”

“Thank you.” Bendy closed the door, making a beeline for the stairs. “C’mon Boris, an empty stomach ain’t worth that kind of hell.”

“I heard that, you cad! Come back here!”

One of the duo’s many silent debates was underway, but negotiating wasn’t on the table this time around. They opened the door with less energy and shuffled inside, putting their instruments down to rest their arms. Bendy wound up his sleeping bicep and circled around to the woman’s side, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Betty sweetheart, if it’s about Saturday night you gotta hear me out,” he pleaded, sounding genuinely sorry…for himself at what he was about to get into.

“What a heel! You see this guy?” Betty flit her attention to Boris first, then to her partner of a small cat with a pink bow around her neck. “Avoid ’em on the streets while you can hon. They’ll snatch you up and spit you right back out.”

Bendy stepped in front of her so she’d be forced to look in his eyes.

“You know I don’t do house calls no more, but it was a real emergency. You’ve always been my angel, you know? You spotted us the same couch twice when Boris and I had a run-in with those guys down by Northbrook. And I’ve always been generous right back, loaning her four dollars to get her hair marcelled,” he added, looking back at the white-furred kitten. “I did that. I set that big buffoon of a husband straight when he thought I was pitchin’ woo with ya, remember? I ain’t a DiMaggio.”

“You were up to bat when I told you I bought myself a brand new negligee for my birthday and wanted to celebrate with a great big pizza pie,” Betty sourly and nonchalantly exposed the demon. She pouted and turned away to place her elbows on her desk. “You know I have an emotional ring for Barney and Barney only, and yet you lead me on thinking I’m fifteen years younger! You rang my telephone dry in the dead of night but never told me what for. Where were you?”

Boris raised a puzzled brow, not recalling spotting a nickel for Bendy to make any phone calls like that. He never carried enough spare change on him, and he was certain it wasn’t Betty’s home they had crashed at when they were out of a job that one night.

“Yeah, where were you?” He repeated curiously.

“What, do you have the brain of a goldfish? I was with you!” Bendy quirked his eyebrows at the wolf. “His teeth have been in bad shape for days, _weeks_ sweetheart, all bleeding and whatnot. You shoulda seen him, puffed up and howling to the moon ‘til midnight.”

“Eh? Oh−!” The black-and-white canine nodded, clumsily gesturing around his face when Betty peered up at him. _Not the first time he’s needed a wingman._ “Yeah, yeah, all swollen around my jaw. Doc gave me some good medicine, so my entire weekend’s been a whole slip up.”

Betty scoffed into her palm. “That’s not the only thing slipping up.”

Bendy changed hands and dealt the casanova card, placing a gentle glove on Betty’s shoulder and curling his lips around a soft proposal. “If the big man’s still outta town, I’ll make it up to ya baby. Soon as I find me a job, I’ll take you to the swellest restaurant in town.”

The woman hid her heel tapping in consideration under her desk, absentmindedly beginning to file her nails. “Guess I should start making reservations then,” she started slowly, keeping her eyes on her nails. “McDuck’s been ringing up every phone line from Burbank to Boston searching for the snazziest two musicians for a group of syncopators. They’re fresh out of a bass and a sax.”

Boris slapped his palms together, his wagging tail a blur of eagerness. “A bass and a−! Hot dog Bendy, that’s us! What’s the job?”

“Something about three weeks in Florida. A hot band’s gotta play at the Seminole-Ritz Hotel in Miami, from dinnertime to the devil’s dancin’ hour. Transportation and all expenses are guaranteed paid for.”

“Isn’t she a bit of terrific!” Bendy graciously kissed Betty’s cheek. “Come on Boris buddy, we don’t have a second to lose.”

“Slow those dogs of yours before you start betting on them boys! He’s with someone right now, so you’ll have to wait.”

The two didn’t need to be told twice and nodded eagerly, sharing a grin that could rival any kid on Christmas morning. It looked like the swingin’ sax and baritone bass were back in business!


	5. Big Cat Magnet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie can never go out for a simple cup of coffee without being reminded of something illegal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for getting this story to 100+ hits! ❤

The day wore a drab shawl of unrelenting ash borrowed from the previous night, and it scattered bits of whatever brightness it was willing to spare for the tiny diner hunched in on itself among the huge Chicago buildings. Hundreds rushed by on the crowded streets, fighting against the whiteout, and more than a handful of wanting eyes took in the desolate food giver, longing for open doors to pour out another one of the chef’s hot specialties.

But it was common toon logic that looks could be deceiving.

The diner’s interior was as gray as the sidewalks, and had been more in the bean counters’ possession than an architect, that much was obvious. It was functional up until the point of its personal depression, with wooden tables as small as they would be capable of seating a copious huddle of people lifting their voices to be heard above the din. Once upon a time there had been plenty of counter space and laughter where the chattering cooks could be heard in the kitchen − joking and teasing, occasionally singing off key − and the opportunity to make casual connections was perfect.

From the over-salted fries and gossip exchanged like poker chips, Eddie figured the food was secondary to the environment. He watched the snow shape a shattered work of art on the glass from his spot by the window, waiting for the call of his name for a plate of nothing fresh, and cast his eyes like a wandering daydreamer. Really he was taking note of who associated with who, a guilty pleasure and terrible habit he had in public that reasoned if he was going to get the information he needed, it was key he be in the right place at the right time, make the right introduction, and know who to high-hat and who to put on the charm for.

Whether he was on the job or not, this was something the P.I. could not shake off.

The Out door opened, and the smell of sourdough and baked beans followed after a tired looking bunny waitress, the only thing alive on her being the brilliant grease stain splattered on her apron.

“Looks appetizing,” Eddie drawled out, placing down 50¢.

“I’d try it before you critique it,” the cotton-tailed cutie deadpanned, opening the register to give Eddie his change.

“No, I was referring to the plate. The thing looks like the only edible bite here.”

The bunny gave the detective a heated scowl that could have been used to warm his coffee twenty degrees higher and spat out an “enjoy your meal _sir_ ” that had him wondering if she used to be a smoker − or at least spit tobacco when no one looked (and possibly insults when people did look) with that mouth. Eddie’s thoughts also shuffled in that _she must love poker, too. How else would she play a swift hypocritical hand and fold under pressure of one pair of comebacks?_

He took a seat alone in the corner with the Scotch-free cup of coffee and his turkey sandwich, eyeing the toons around him who were sipping their beverages like it was a great luxury. Their faces were the same as they nibbled the crust off their sandwiches and shared idle babble about baseball or new story on the radio with colleagues. Eddie took a big sip of his own coffee and let the syrupy liquid linger a little too long on his tongue. There was flavor there, he was sure, and once he had become used to the bitter aftertaste that gave him a lock-jaw, it stepped forward shyly.

 _Hazelnut_ , he concluded, watching a gap grow as the sugar he poured into the cup sent large ripples spreading towards the bottom.

His head copied the half a dozen customers in glancing up as the door swung open, heralded by a cold blow. A sleek black panther in a faded gray suit approached the counter to order, and the customers returned to their discussions as the door closed behind the new entrant and the breeze was forgotten.

All the customers but Eddie.

His heart pulsed about as fast as the snowfall outside as the feline spoke to the waitress lazily scribbling on her bumpy notepad. He didn’t have that typical _where have I seen him before_ thought sitting in the pit of his stomach, but rather a confusing _should I have seen him before_. Something else would soon make a hit on his appetite and interest, and all it needed was the vintage semblance of a little caffeine delivery system.

“Say Miss, is that a collector’s item or somethin’?” Eddie asked another bunny waitress, pointing at a shelved tea kettle big as life and yet not outstanding. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen a kettle look like that.”

“You could say it’s our gem. Our good luck charm,” the older waitress responded. She had tired eyes, but there was a surviving spark in them to assure others of her good heart. She moved in to refill Eddie’s cup, but he waved the action away. “Not a fan of coffee? You hardly touched yours.”

“Never was a fan.”

“Ya hate it?”

“Now don’t go putting words in my mouth. I’m just not a fan, I don’t curse the damn thing to Hell.”

“Then why order a cup if you don’t particularly like it?” The waitress further pressed.

“Why keep a kettle if you’re not going to use it?” Eddie coolly countered.

“Like I _said_ baby doll, it’s our gem. Our good luck charm.”

Eddie’s gaze took an unhurried stroll around the four walls of damp, dreary, and depressing, landing right back on the plain good-luck piece minding its own business above the floor. The kettle wasn’t stunning or elegant, it didn’t look costly, didn’t seem to have any sentimental value, and was rusted in the same hue as a pomegranate seed.

So why did it leave a sour taste in Eddie’s mouth? Hadn’t the hazelnut done enough?

“Hope you folks got water insurance damage. Luck’s flooding the place. Hey,” he added before the server could bounce in a huff, “lemme take a closer look at your talisman if you don’t mind. Let me in on some of that magic, will ya?”

“Why don’t you just leave us alone?” The waitress that had taken his order piped up loudly from the counter. “If you think you’re this great big comedian by making fun of us, then you’ve got another think coming.”

“Now Lola, be nice. The man’s just craving for knowledge. Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” the older waitress lightly scolded.

“He can crave a whole ice cream soda for all I care! Why don’t you just leave us alone? The next sting you make, you can eat your lunch out in the snow.”

Eddie raised an unaffected brow at the snappy waitress, who flattened her fists to her hips to keep more than empty threats from flying. The second bunny shrugged, the lines rising under her eyes to animate the dying flame inside them as she took her leave to wait another table.

“Don’t take it too personally.”

Eddie turned his head to see the dark panther leaning against the wall like he had earlier, waiting for the call of his name for a plate of nothing fresh. The large cat wasn’t looking his way, but his whiskers twitched about as fast as the snowfall outside and he allowed one eye to open, looking Eddie up and down.

“She means well,” he continued.

“You know her?” Eddie asked curiously.

“No, I know the diner.”

“What do you mean you ‘know the diner’? Have you been here in its glory days or something?”

“That’s an understatement.”

Eddie scoffed around his coffee, unable to work with the feline’s odd intervals of speech and loose responses. The private eye in his gut was squirming under an unpleasant balmy heat, and it was far too late to act uninterested towards the eatery’s history and what the hell the deal was with that kettle and why it made his face warm. His body language snuggled on chipped impatience while the strange panther’s enjoyment of whether he was marveling in Twenty Questions or not couldn’t be determined.

Eddie leaned forward on his fist, jutting his chin out. “Wanna sit and have lunch with me, pal?”

“And inconvenience you?”

“I would hate for this lovely conversation to end. ‘Sides,” the P.I. added, raising another brow in challenge, “if you didn’t want me knowing you know a couple things here and there, you wouldn’t brag about ’em.”

The single eyeball unbelievably kept open as opposed to both closed on the panther. A slower than molasses smirk stretched across his muzzle while his tail swished to balance his even walk to the table Eddie sat at. He took a slow seat, eyes still closed, and leaned forward on one paw under his chin.

“And what makes you think I’ve got something special to sing like a canary?” He practically purred out.

“Chicago ain’t the best place going around keeping secrets,” Eddie pointed out, absentmindedly splitting his sandwich. “People talk too much, love to gossip and brag. You’re a smart guy; you should know what happens when word gets out.”

“Indeed. Some people have no respect for the dead.” The panther retrieved a flask hidden in his suit like he was lounging at home and took a shot, tipping it forward when he was done. “Care for some Scotch in that coffee of yours?”

Holding back a second scoff, Eddie shook his head. “I’ll take a raincheck. Just let me get drunk off knowledge instead, wise guy. You said you knew this diner.”

“Shouldn’t everybody? It’s been around for almost twenty years.”

“And the workers?”

“Even longer. That one however”—The panther glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the quick-tongued Lola balancing four trays of orders in her arms—“like I said, she means well. Some say she’s worked around her block until it was no longer hers. With her mouth, I’m surprised she hasn’t been taken for a ride yet.”

Eddie stared longer than necessary, feeling his distaste chafing over his chest. Sure he and the dame had bumped around with their spiked conversation, and yeah she had gotten steamed up when he sarcastically gassed up her workplace, but she was still a girl with a job − a job that Eddie was sure had worse guys than him rolling in and demanding more than food.

“…long since devoid of warmth,” the panther was going on, _most likely about that weird kettle_ , Eddie thought, cursing under his breath that he had tuned out most of its history all because he was mentally defending Lola. That wasn’t his style; not defending, of course, that was his job, but lately distractions came hotter than white lightning. What was with him? “…inland too. Haven’t seen much around in years.”

Shit, he did it again.

“Interesting. Say, where’s the kettle from?” Eddie put in, betting on the panther being an ass and rebutting that he’d already answered.

He twirled a claw in a vague unconnected circle. “Some urban parts around Inkwell.”

Well thank God Eddie hadn’t bet high. But Inkwell what? Was it a joint somewhere in Chicago? Inkwell, Ohio? Did it border Lake Michigan? No, the suited cat had said inland, meaning far away from the ocean or in the very middle of a country. Whatever hadn’t seen much in years and wherever these urban parts were, the P.I. was willing to put a few things on this Inkwell place being an island. Now all that was left was to—

“I do hope you’re not going to run out _now_ and turn a whole library inside out to learn more about this place, dear detective.” The panther’s slender claws had graced over the flesh of Eddie’s forearms, without losing time and without drawing attention. They did draw an unfinished soft artwork of red, rooting the grown man in the present while the minutes pushed ahead without him. “I normally don’t like taking chances on people I haven’t personally vetted, but somehow the Chicago PD is extremely confident in you.”

Eddie was watching him, keeping his gait casual with no hesitation like he’d been told to do once upon a time ago. “The key to getting away with a crime is poor communication, you know. Your crime right now is not liking me? You’ve done a fantastic job with poor wordplay so far, so you’ll get bail,” he spat out. “Most money folds hands after all, and people trust one another with their word.”

“They shouldn’t.” A brittle silence passed between human and animal for a hot minute until something for a Bagheera was called at the front. “Thank you for letting me sit with you for lunch. Shall I buy you some coffee somewhere quieter if we ever see each other again?”

It wasn’t the constant and weak allusions to coffee served at the ‘funeral’ services some time back that did it for Eddie. It wasn’t the panther’s dignified and strict persona that set off red flares instead of red flags, painfully painting a different cat’s face whenever he spoke that worked his nerves. It was what the cat had explicitly traced over his forearms that brought forward another level of pain Eddie knew had no place under anyone’s care or healing hand.

At least now he remembered where he should have seen him before.

Not wanting to be stuck in limbo, Eddie snatched some napkins from a nearby dispenser and wiped his blood clean off. He nodded at the drink invitation, meeting Bagheera’s eyes.

“Yeah, Scotch. Make it a demitasse with soda on the side.”


	6. Scrooged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boy, oh *boy*, does McDuck have more to say about the Florida job.

From being smarter than the smarties, tougher than the toughies, and making it square, Scrooge McDuck’s office was everything he had dreamed he would achieve: ostentatious, reassuringly expensive and in the most exclusive part of the city. Walls, shelves and tables held all kinds of photographs and tchotchkes of his clients − bands, vocalists, trios, radio personalities. His problem now was that earning the best of everything could no longer fly if he couldn’t get the potential out the nest first.

“Red, it’s not that hard to digest. It’s three weeks in Florida with Swingin’ Sally and Her Society Syncopators,” the Scottish mammal babbled into the telephone. “They need someone with talent to spare for a saxophone and a bass, and they’re on a strict… Whaddya mean ‘who is this’? It’s McDuck, you ditzy bampot!”

Pacing up and down on the other side of the desk, a flashily-dressed broad who had seen thirty summers and a few hard winters, nervously fiddled with a large white pill in her hands. With good intentions but coming across as desperate and rude, she rushed over to shout in the receiver.

“Swingtime anytime, sweetie! Tell them alligators you’ll be seein’ them later when the cats are sending solid—”

Her hand was swatted a few times, and it took a fourth sharp sting to the wrist for her to let go.

“Let me do my job, lassie!” McDuck hissed in warning. “Pardon the interruption Red, where were we? No, no, you won’t have to worry about that, it’s all taken care of. Now, the train leaves at… Red? Hello Red, are you still there? Red!”

Sally didn’t know what to take first − a bigger pill for her paranoia or the next train to the loony bin.

“Mashugana! Played 112 hours for a marathon dance and is in bed with a nervous collapse,” the elderly duck explained with a shake of the head.

Sally reached for the pitcher of water. “Tell her to move over.”

Sitting opposite to her, a bespectacled potbellied cherry-nosed man of forty thumbed through a card file in his lap. “What about Miss Green? Has she got availability?”

McDuck shook his head again, already dialing another number. “The mousy one? Last I heard, she’s got talents elsewhere blowing over in the Salvation Army.”

“Just my luck. Here we are, all packed and grinning and ready for Miami, and what happens?” Sally continued pacing the wide office, gesturing around to the photos on the wall. “The saxophone runs off with some Bible beater and the bass fiddle’s carrying more than the torch for some college fish. Doc, I oughta fire you!”

The half-bald dwarf jumped a foot in the air. “Me? I-I’m the watchman of the manager, not the band of the night. Uh, the manager of the band! Not the night watcher.”

“Aye, let me talk to Faline Doe,” McDuck was currently saying, tapping a silver lined cigarette in between his fingers he pulled seemingly out of nowhere. “A certain swingin’ society’s making a request and needs… What in bloody hell’s she doing in New York City? On the level?” He ended the call with a shocked slam. “Faline let her hair grow and someone else is doing the swinging on the third ‘bass’.”

“Fella’s gonna have a lot of ruth when he finds out the sort of babe he scored.” Sally picked up her purse, rummaging through it with blazing intent. “Blasted, they need to repeal Prohibition already! I need a drink.”

Doc gently pat the arm of the fretting lady and guided her out the door. “Look Scrooge, you know the kind of musicians we need, and we don’t care where you have to find them. Just get them on that eight by train o’clock. Uh, clock-oh train by eight. O-on the train by eight, please!”

“I’ll run to the ends of the earth to find your hidden gems, no worries lad. After all, adventure is the mother of industry!”

McDuck’s feathers ruffled in a goodbye wave, bristled up in tension when he was finally alone, and quickly matted themselves down at the blissful inhale of nicotine. Like Miss Sally, he full-heartedly agreed that they needed to uplift Prohibition lest he run the streets rampant for another pack. He mostly made money grow, he didn’t watch it shrink.

“Betty lamb, get me long distance please,” McDuck requested into the phone, smudging the cigarette. “Hello, long distance? Get me the Carl Banks Agency in Calisota.”

His attention shot up to the door, eyes furrowed at his two most popular clients beaming like they’d just won $100,000. No matter how large they could capitalize the ‘F’ in famous for his stretch of work, McDuck greatly preferred not having them in his office during his busiest hours. But the way the wolf’s tail was wagging in a blur and how fast the tiny demon jumped on the corner of his desk, well that must’ve meant they had news for him rather than the other way around.

“I’d like to speak with Mr. Banks, please. What is it boys?” McDuck asked quietly around the receiver.

“Betty told us about the Florida job, and we’re all in,” Bendy explained, the dark color in his eyes glinting bright. “We’re not too late, are we?”

Something between a wheeze and blubbered scoff flew out the orange bill. “You two clowns are mighty late for the circus if you think I’m giving you the job! Carl Banks, curse me kilts, do you need me to spell it out for you dolts?”

“Hey now, why won’t you give it to us?” Boris demanded, looking from the agent to Bendy and back. “You need a saxophone and bass player, don’tcha?”

“The instruments are right, but you’re not. You lads are the wrong shape for this.”

“Wrong shape? The hell you lookin’ for, hunchbacks or somethin’?” Bendy snapped, fists at his hips.

“Boy, the backs are the least of my concerns. Sure sir, I’ll hold on.”

Boris took the paused moment on the other phone line to jump in again. “Tell it to me straight, what kind of band is this McDuck? Are we performing on Mars or what?”

“You have to be under twenty-five,” the duck started, wishing he hadn’t thrown out that cigarette.

“We could pass for that,” Bendy assured with a lazy gloved wave.

“You gotta be blonde.”

“We could dye our hair,” Boris suggested lightly.

“And you gotta be girls!”

Bendy started another wave of his hand. “We could—”

“No, we couldn’t!” Boris sharply cut in.

Bendy’s mouth remained open, his hand paused mid-wave and his eyes glazed over in thought. Both McDuck and Boris could practically see his brain trying to comprehend that one main necessity neither of them had any control over. If he had a neck, he would’ve snapped it clean off by how fast his head shook. In doing so, he caught one of the photos hanging proudly behind McDuck:

A black-and-white snapshot of a young doll posed in front of her band − sixteen girls, all blonde, all in identical gowns, and none of them looked a day over 20. On the drumset read ‘Swingin’ Sally and Her Society Syncopators’.

Bendy spluttered out a concerning noise of surprise, horror, and bewilderment. “Wait a hot damn minute, you’re saying this Florida gig is for a girls’ band?” He shouted.

“Yeah Einstein, that’s the song he’s singing. ‘A hot band’s gotta play at the Seminole-Ritz Hotel in Miami,’” Boris mimicked Betty’s voucher. “Ooh! I oughta tell her a thing or two.”

“Yes, you do that. Goodbye boys.”

McDuck’s tone was undoubtedly giving them the boot, but as he knew it would, his pint-sized client’s stubborn nature flared out.

“Now let’s not be hasty,” Bendy mused slowly, stroking his chin. “I’m doing something brash by stopping and thinking for a second. Boris, why couldn’t we do it? Last year when we played in that gypsy tea room,” he added, turning to McDuck, “we wore gold earrings. And you remember when you booked us with that Hawaiian band?” He swayed his hips, pantomiming the Hula. “We wore grass skirts!”

McDuck’s beady eyes flit over his spectacles to stare at Boris. “Be honest with me lad, has he been drinking?”

Boris grabbed at the still dancing demon. “No, but he ain’t been eating so good, either. He’s got an empty stomach and it’s gone to his head.”

“The first time I stop and think, and I’m met with insults. Think about it buddy, three weeks in sunny Florida! Palm trees, sand and beaches, flying fish! We borrow some clothes from the girls in the chorus, pick up some secondhand wigs”—Bendy opened his palms under his chest, bouncing them slightly and winking—“a little padding here and there, and we call ourselves Brinda and Boreese.”

“Brinda and Boreese?” Boris repeated with false consideration in his voice, but quick as a whip he grabbed Bendy by the scruff of his (lacking) neck. “Come on, you idiot!”

“Well we gotta pick up a little money tonight somehow! You can’t expect us to go hungry out in that blizzard!”

“Boys.” The pair turned, seeing McDuck trying to massage out a headache from the disruption as he continued to wait for the receptionist to connect him to Mr. Banks. He stared intently at the wolf and demon, tapping a feathered finger fast on the edge of his desk. “Try not to let your imaginations curse everything with life. Some things you’ll want to remain fantasies, understood? Now if it’s a little extra green yer after, the University of Illinois is having their St. Valentine’s dance. Six dollars a man, so be on that campus in Urbana by eight o’clock if it’s an aye from ye.”

“Aye!” Bendy confirmed, jumping out of Boris’s grip to readjust his collar. “We’ll take it, and hey − if that good duck artist doesn’t come through, you know where to find us.”

“Yeah, he’ll find us in grass skirts and golden earrings all the way in Urbana _Brinda_ ,” Boris growled, nudging the talkative demon out the office. “All the way in Urbana for a one night stand. By Joe! And for what, twelve dollars? How are we getting there?”

“Least we can get one of our coats outta hock,” Bendy pointed out, then spun his hand in his usual lazy gesture at the last question. “An’ no worries buddy, I’ve got us covered.”

Still filing her nails, Betty spared a moment to look up when the two returned. “How’d it go _girls_?”

“Oh, quiet you,” Boris growled, and Betty grinned in delight. “You knew about this before we made fools out of ourselves. I oughta wring your neck.”

“Boris, I’m shocked! That’s no way to treat a lady,” Bendy chided, both hands placed protectively on Betty’s shoulders. His fingers lightly kneaded into her muscles and his face lowered beside hers. “Say Betty baby,” he started in a soft purr, “what are you doing later tonight?”

Betty’s eyes flashed up in suspense. “Tonight? Why?”

“It’s too cold out to spend another minute alone. I’ve got big plans and a bigger stash that’ll cure what ails ya.” A pair of inky eyes flit down and back up, glinting with, pardon the expression, devilish intent. “It should heat us up from head to toe without a doubt.”

“I’m not doing anything. I just…thought I’d go home, have a glass of milk, and whittle away at some cold pizza.”

A curled finger lifted the woman’s chin. “Then you’ll be in all evening?”

A smile much too lovesick for Betty’s liking glossed her lips. “Yes Bendy.”

“Good! Then you won’t be needing your car.”

“My car?” Betty’s eyes widened, no longer the queen but the fool from Bendy’s play. She brandished her file, eyes burning in rage. “ _Why you−!_ ”

Bendy’s hands wrapped snugly around her waist, pulling her forward with vigor and silencing her with a passionate kiss that she melted into like butter. Boris rolled his eyes, knowing that when the time came for when he genuinely understood his pal’s ‘romantic’ flings, he’d be the happiest wolf in Chicago.


	7. Valentines and Suitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What’s Valentine’s Day without a little red?

The garage walls that had been so stifling in the summertime seemed insubstantial against the blizzard’s disorderly attacks. The roof was already creaking and if the owner didn’t want it to collapse, he would have to be up there with shovels in the next hour. In the flickering light of the old car port, hours from a damp afternoon, four men dealt in stud poker against the wall with an audience of three grease-stained mechanics. A single electric light bulb marked up one sly grin, the dealer’s emotions a comical dance of sorts and writ large across his slim, peach muzzle.

“Alrighty boys, next hand. King high, pair of bullets, possible straight, possible nothing… And nothin’ wild now! Wildcards are for kittens.”

“Then we’d betta get some kitty litter, huh?” A toothpick-thin tomcat suggested wryly, carefully eyeing his deck. “We know how you are when ya lose. You’d piss yourself nonstop racking up the bets you’ll owe me.”

“The bets ‘you’ll owe Bucky’? Yep, that’s me,” a short and stout Siamese cat wisecracked. His ears laid back flat on his head while the rest of his body trembled in a faint tic of some sort. “Have you been eating right, bud? You’re saying my name awfully funny.”

“Like I’d ever have your name on the tip of my _tongue_ , you nut.”

“Rough. Did ole Jerry-boy finally cut you off that barbaric deal?”

The gray tomcat scowled around his heavily scarred eyes. “I’m ignoring you Bucky.”

The Siamese-bred animal cackled drily. “Well, I’m prepared to make that very difficult for you.”

“Ahhh, shaddap!” A Tuxedo cat growled behind a sloppy yet stridulating lisp, hitting both felines on the head with an umbrella produced out of nowhere. “Quit the yappin’ and play us, won’tcha?”

There was a crunch of gravel behind the card players, not the kind of continuous noise you’d get from a car pulling in, but the short crunch of snow. One of the mechanics nudged the Pink Panther and without even looking over, he knew the two boys were wobbling with every step against the icy ground before correcting their balance and moving inwards.

Every Thursday reveller knew the local garage was always closed from 3:00 to 4:00 for recreational ‘business’, but echoing down the concrete walls were indeed footsteps. In sync, all the cats took the safety off their guns and the mechanics brandished their wrenches when, from around the corner, bundled in a pair of peculiar toons with barely a scrap of clothing on them. No weapons on them either, and their boots scraped to a loud stop.

“You guys can go up or down for all I care if you don’t drop ’em!” Bucky demanded.

“Drop what? We haven’t got anything!” The tail-less imp insisted, he and the tall wolf accompanying him holding their hands chest level, each carrying a cased instrument. “We just came here to pick up a car.”

Neither the cats nor the mechanics were buying the story, yet one pastel puss was thankfully on their side. He reappeared inside the cramped saxophone case, cracking it open from the inside and playing a bouncing tune while the other half of his body, using his tail, unzipped the wolf’s bass case and plucked a harmonizing melody.

“Relax, just some bona fide musicians,” he assured, getting one hell of a scare out of them. He popped out of the cases, reattaching his body and flipping a spare coin the itty bitty demon’s way who scrambled to catch it. “They ain’t hurtin’ nobody. C’mon, guns away. Pair of aces bets.”

The panther had seen those swingers around maybe once or twice, but the limited amount of in-person visits was nothing compared to what he knew behind their backs. Sure he got his information mixed up every once in a while, and it was hard to distinguish who was exaggerating the kinds of inky destruction for the pint-sized demon’s ego’s sake, or who was trying to make it sound like they’d seen bigger fangs on wolves in sheep’s clothing. The Pink Panther could finally discern with his own ears and eyes what characters Bendy and Boris were.

“Yeah, we’re here for Betty Rubble’s car. It’s a ‘25 Foot-peddler coupe, brown, sir.”

What could two rookie musicians need with a fine car like that? Were they headed to a party? Were they the opening act for some concert?

“Sure thing sonny. How much gas you want?”

“Fifty cents worth oughta do.”

Sheesh, these fellas were either loaded or desperate. That would get them mileage for sure. They had to be going somewhere outside of Chicago.

“Want me to put it on Miss Rubble’s tab?”

“Eh, why not? And while you’re at it”—The wry demon flipped the mechanic the (fake) coin, nudging his canine partner with his free arm to put his two quarters away—“fill her up.”

Poor dame. How loose was she worn on Bendy’s sleeve? And married, too! Her husband would have a cow if he found out which team his little lady was rooting for. The Pink Panther shook his head and reached for a spare cigarette, but he didn’t get a chance to light it when squealing car tires barreled into the garage.

A dark Duesenberg skid inside about ten feet away from the card players, and the fiery cats were a second too slow in taking their guns back out. Two discolored eels jumped out and shocked both the light bulb and the weapons out of commission. Three more goons − a one-eyed sailor, a grizzly brute, and a six-legged spider − waved their submachine guns around, meaning no monkey business, while a coyote bared his teeth with an equally terrifying sawed-off shotgun.

“Face the wall, all of ya!” He snarled. All but one of the cats shot him daggers enough for the soul to bleed and begrudgingly obeyed. “You too, Pinky! Join your friends against the wall. Now!”

The panther took his time in laying his cards down, getting up, stretching out his back, asking for a spare lighter and what the goons were doing for lunch…

“Quit stallin’, ya pussycat! It’ll only make the boss angrier,” the eye-patched shorty snapped.

The Pink Panther’s eyes widened, whether in mock terror or genuine curiosity, only he knew. “Gosh, who’s your boss with a temper like that? I can only imagine him as the most vile, despicable black-hearted piece of malice that makes even the _Devil_ grovel at his feet for mercy.”

A pair of immaculately polished spats exited the passenger side, chilling the walls with their sharp clicking while a velvety trio of words, “you flatter me,” greatly juxtaposed the position of the cats being held at gunpoint. A beat of silence passed as the two tallest cats in the garage stared, unmoving, until the Pink Panther let out a great sigh of relief.

“Oh, Khanny-boy! _Phew!_ I thought I was a real goner. Ya know, against a real threat? Thank God it’s only you.”

“God won’t want anything to do with you once we’re through, nor will the Devil who does happen to grovel at my feet. But I digress.” Shere Khan traversed the room in a casual breeze, eyeing the abandoned card game. “How rude of you. You know I love a good game of poker as much as the next gentleman.”

“We would’ve invited you,” a shaking Bucky lied through his teeth, “but you’ve been so busy, ya know?”

Khan chuckled. “Yes, busy. Busy at the laundromat getting police blood out of my suit. Busy trying to figure out how I’ll ever be able to offer my spirited services for the tight-lipped and respectable.” His eyes gathered storm clouds for a rainfall the four cats and three mechanics would never witness. “And I’ll be plenty busy counting each and every bullet that will riddle all seven of your pathetic skulls.”

The Pink Panther’s throat strained from the gulp he tried to force off. “Khanny, I’m… _Heh_ , what can I say but I’m in shock? Thought we been pals since we were cubs? Kings of the jungle together?”

With each attempt to reach some type of conscience on the prowling tiger, Khan took one step closer. His left paw unsheathed his deadly claws, and when he moved in to caress under the panther’s chin, his hand had a mind of its own and instead grabbed the latter by the throat.

“You honestly believe you’re of my kind?” Khan rumbled like a cool summer thunder. “You’re a disgrace in the Felidae family, nothing but a flaw in the center of a perfectly valuable diamond.” He tightened his grip, watching the helpless little kitten wriggle for air. “Bagheera is more of a panther than you’ll ever be, and you know how much I loathe the very taunting music of his heartbeat on the streets.”

Even close to suffocation, the Pink Panther choked out a laugh. “N-now Khan, you can’t mean—”

“Ah, too bad Pinky. You would have had three eights.” Khan’s attention had returned to the table full of cards, and he was close enough in reach to flip over the panther’s previous hand. With a flash of lightning in his eyes, the tiger let go of his suffocating victim and stepped back. “Goodbye, Pinky.”

“Eh?” Six black, gaping mouths ready to scream lead took a heaping breath of air as the Pink Panther struggled to find his own. “H-hey, Shere Khan? Why there’s no need for—” _Click._ “Khan! No, no, please! _N_ —”

What was Valentine’s Day without a little red? What was that cold February morning without a little packed heat?

The steady chatter of bullets never seemed to end, making each cat and mechanic jump, writhe, and scream in a lovely orchestra of justice for the bloodthirsty tiger. But the concert wasn’t over yet. Khan’s ear twitched to the left, and his head turn was smooth yet indistinct, like the devil’s shadow forming. Two figures jerked back behind the large Foot-peddler.

“Come now, we’re all too old for hide-and-seek,” Khan chuckled out. His goons turned, guns directed at the brown vehicle. “Come on out of there fellas. Come on.”

A familiar looking little devil and a freckle-dotted canine hesitantly obeyed the leveled orders, trying to hold up their gloves hands but struggled with the heavy instruments they had. The wolf, of all toons, darted a horrified glance toward the foot of the wall, visibly shaking at the reddened artwork.

“We…” The tall wolf puffed out a courtesy laugh and looked Khan in the eye. “We didn’t see anything, did we buddy?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, yeah, not a thing. Besides, it’s none of our business if you guys wanna knock each other off. I—”

The wolf violently nudged his partner with his elbow, nearly taking out his eye due to the height difference. Khan kept an unshrinking watch on the coupled characters, giving them a leisure onceover.

“Say, haven’t you boys played for me somewhere before?”

“Us?” The demon waved a hand, trying to inch away while his words failed to distract the orange and black cat. Yep, that was his lead sax man alright. “Nah, we’re just a couple of amateurs. We’re not worth fifty cents. That’s a lot for gas money, ain’t it? We think we’ll walk.”

“Stay right where you are boys. Walking is rather weak. Wouldn’t you rather run?”

“R-run?” Boris uncharacteristically stammered. Well he had just seen a live gun show, so that could be excused.

“You should know that everyone runs from Shere Khan.” Khan motioned toward Barley, who shuffled forwards and slowly leveled his machine gun at Bendy and Boris. He smirked when they both tensed, though not exactly in fear. There was a sprinkle of fear in their bodies, but there was more. As if they were betting on whether or not to fight tooth and nail even if it meant dying trying. “Ah, you have spirit for one so small. And such spirit is deserving of a sporting chance. Now, I’m going to close my eyes and count to ten. It makes the chase more interesting…for me. One…”

Khan didn’t see the two exchange stupefied glances, but he did hear some of his henchmen stepping forward to make the chase even more interesting. He could practically taste the fear in Boris’s voice when he again stammered out,

“Y-you don’t understand, sir. We’ve worked with you for months, so we wouldn’t rat out anyone. W-we won’t breathe a word.”

Khan, with his eyes still closed, rebut, “You won’t breath anything − not even air. Two… _three_ …four…”

There was more movement that came to his ears, and definitely the sweet and potent scent of fear mixed with indignance and shock. He didn’t want the sadistic high to distract the rest of his senses, but damn did he love this part of the job. The impatient bone in his body was ticking louder than the clock on the wall.

“You’re trying my patience,” he growled out around a grin, unsheathing the rest of his claws. “Five, six, seven, eight, _nine−!_ ”

A clatter to the asphalt floor made everyone jump and wheel around. The blue apparition of the Pink Panther was snaked halfway out of its previously alive body, fumbling with the garage’s only phone. Khan was so lost in that moment and the white rage his brain was in, his sadistic euphoria suddenly gone, and then there was the explosion and mental framework afterwards, blocking his usual pattern of animosity. Khan perforated what was left of the panther’s animated ghost with a hail of lead along with the telephone, his henchmen losing all of their nerve at the sight of the fearsome creature their boss was.

It only grew worse when the toon’s untouchable soul danced around the bullets and, unbeknownst to Khan, Bendy and Boris were taking advantage of the momentary diversion, and like scalded jackasses bolted out of the garage. Charley, Edgar, and Wile E. Coyote began the chase after the escaped witnesses, but the wails of an approaching police siren stopped them cold.

Meanwhile, one of the Moray brothers was working up the courage to snap his boss out of his homicidal trance. “What’ll we do now, sir?”

Khan’s laugh was like thunder; it was a low, rumbling boom.

“Kill them, of course. But for now, why don’t we reenact what’s happened to my dear friends for our fellow men in blue if they happen to catch us?”


	8. Off to Florida, Off to Inkwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bendy and Boris are willing to do anything to escape the wrath of Shere Khan. Meanwhile, Eddie plans a spontaneous trip to Inkwell Isles.

Bendy and Boris barreled out of the garage, weaving dangerously in and out of traffic and half-blinded by the glares of snow, headlights, and mental images of what would become of them if their ex-job provider had them in his claws. Both could feel the straining of their lungs from the mere thought alone, and the will of their muscles to go far beyond what normal running could ever demand forced them to _go_ , just keep going.

Bendy’s feet violently slipped outwards on the wet, snow-covered tarmac as he rounded the corner on Clark Street, the cold morning air shocking his throat and chest as he inhaled faster. Boris came after, his breath coming in hot and nervous spurts while his fingers curled into sweaty fists at his sides.

“Oh God, I think…I think they got me. They got me Bendy!”

As if he wasn’t already running on stress. Bendy’s heart was on a hair-trigger as he checked for any open wounds or bloody patches beneath Boris’s coat, but when he found nothing, he smacked his arm hard.

“They got the bull fiddle, stupid!”

“No blood?”

“If we stick around, there will be.”

So the two kept going, sprinting over loose rubble and startling whenever they heard clumsy footfalls crunching over the snow and furious breathing, forgetting it was their very own and not any of Khan’s goons catching up to them. In a matter of minutes a couple of motorcycle policemen, their sirens wailing, flashed by in the direction of the garage. The word must have spread faster than those bullets, because curious and worried pedestrians were also running in the same direction. Bendy hurried to fit himself into a wall to avoid the chaos and dragged Boris along with him, sparing only a few seconds for some air before starting all over again.

“Bendy, wait a minute!” The demon’s ankle almost twisted when Boris yanked him by the elbow. “We’re going in circles. Where are we running to?”

Bendy freed his arm. “As far away as possible.”

“This isn’t far enough. You don’t know those guys, but they know us! They know our faces and what we do and who we worked for. Every hood in Chicago will be looking for us, and if as much as a whisper gets out, neither of our lives are going to be worth a plugged nickel.”

Bendy forced his grinding teeth to be still, a red-hot anger boiling through his blood towards the situation he and Boris were in. All they ever wanted to do was band together and make money hand over fist to avoid another rut, but instead they were plopped in straight scalding hot water. And out of all the people, it had to have been the King of the Jungle himself after them.

A cigar store on the corner was the faint glow of hope in the boys’ hell. Boris scrambled through the door, a breathless Bendy following behind. An obese, cigar-smoking black cat sneered above his newspaper at the abrupt walk in. The wolf flashed a toothy grin and nudged his pal’s side.

“Quick, gimme a nickel,” he said through his teeth.

The inky demon was still in a daze from all the running. “A wha…?”

“A nickel. Hurry up.”

Boris set his instrument aside as Bendy handed him 5¢, inserting it in the slot of the telephone by the entrance.

“Boris buddy, tell me you’re calling the police,” Bendy muttered.

Boris scoffed. “Against Shere Khan? We’d never live to testify it. Operator, get me the MD Branch in Wabash, one-nine-four-seven.”

Bendy tapped the flat spaces of his jacket pockets, training his eyes to be on extra high alert in case he and Boris needed to book it. Anytime a toon passed by the window, short or tall, Bendy’s heart leapt up to his throat and his hand kept wanting to grab Boris’s arm and pull him away from the phone.

“Look pal, we gotta get out of town,” Bendy whispered fast. “Disguise ourselves. We can grow beards, gain some weight, start speaking with accents if it helps.”

“We are getting out of town, and we are getting disguises,” Boris assured him, “but we’re sure as hell not growing beards.”

“You want our faces to be as naked as our bodies when they take us to the morgue? Boris, we gotta be practical about this!”

“I am being practical. We’re gaining a couple of ounces, too. That’s it.”

“A couple of−!” Bendy jumped and swung his arm out to bop Boris on the head, but the latter expected this and ducked. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Those guys got machine guns waiting to blast our heads off, and all you can worry about is not getting any rounder than you already are?”

“Weight on our chests, stupid!”

Bendy may as well have been stupid, because he still didn’t get it. His lips were pinched shut when he opened it to try and talk some sense into that big empty dogged head.

“Hello? Mister McDuck?” Boris started, his voice a tremulous soprano. “I understand you’re looking for a couple of girl musicians.”

Now Bendy got it.

. . . . . . . .

A crescent moon casting almost no light joined the February darkness. The snow had overstayed its welcome and was melting in on itself as dusk was falling. The few surviving mosquitoes came out to buzz around the blood-pumping goosebumps prickling Eddie’s forearms from the evening chill. Everyone from every walk of life was shoulder to shoulder, in each other’s faces, no personal space and no exceptions.

“Won’t you give it a rest already?” Bagheera, even with his dignified and level-headed voice, sounded irritable.

“A rest with what?” Eddie asked, standing a couple meters from the platform, faced forwards and diligently studying the map he already knew.

“Looking at everybody. Watching them form opinions, deciding on the safest place to stand, nearer to who, further from who.”

“You obviously don’t know my line of work.”

“No, and I don’t plan to for your sake.” Bagheera lit a cigarette, humbly letting the swirl of gray lift in the busy air. “But you’d better be wary. Anywhere outside of Chicago may seem like paradise, but you’re not going out on vacation. Even the holiest heavenly kingdom has sin in its wake.”

“Bud, this ain’t no kiddies program. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know all those things.”

“I should hope so.” The panther barely gave a parting gesture or a wish of good luck (not that Eddie needed to hear it, but it sure would’ve been nice). However, the sleek cat hadn’t taken three steps to the left before he was turning back on his heel, yellow eyes glaring under the light. “Oh, one more thing Eddie.”

“What?” The man grumbled without looking up from the map.

“You’ll be dying for a drink by the time you get there, and when you do…” Bagheera took a hand off the map, causing it to drop as he ran a claw along Eddie’s skin in some weird _tap, tap, tap-tap, scratch, tap, tap-tap, tap-scratch_ beat. “Don’t fool around unless you really mean to do so.”

Bagheera left as vaguely as he’d spoken all evening long, testing Eddie’s gut if he should really be conversing with the likes of him or if the former was just leading the P.I. down the garden path. After all, Bagheera did have some form of relation to Shere Khan if he could boldly reference the events in that speakeasy, and whether that was dangerous information to keep or let loose to someone of higher power, Eddie wasn’t sure.

He folded the map up tight in one of his coat pockets and absentmindedly fumbled through another, continuing his people-watch a bit indignantly when he didn’t feel the familiar cool touch of a flask or the roll of tobacco.

“Just my luck leaving the essentials behind,” Eddie grumbled to himself, unclasping and then redoing his cufflinks to keep his hands occupied. But that first world problem immediately took a backseat in his mind when a tiny toon cat made his way down the platform, peddling his papers.

“ _Extra! Extra!_ Seven Slaughtered in North Side Garage! Feared Bloody Aftermath!”

Eddie’s heart paused a second too long. “Hey boy? Lemme get one of them papers. And uh…keep the change,” he added after clumsily handing the paperboy more than 2¢.

“Gee mister, thanks!”

As the toon returned to his job, Eddie scanned the paper with breakneck speed, skimming over for any names at first, then jumped back to the beginning to fully read it.

_“At approximately 10:30 a.m. inside the North Side Garage on Lincoln Park, seven men were gunned down in an act of heartless iniquity − three of them identified as part-time mechanics of the garage, the remaining four revealed to be Thomas “Tom Cat” Jasper, Sylvester James Pussycat, Sr., Bucky Katt, and mobster Pink Panther. Some 70 rounds of ammunition were fired. When police officers from Chicago’s 36th District arrived, they found one member, Panther, barely alive. In the few minutes before he died, they pressed him to reveal what had happened, but Panther wouldn’t talk.”_

Eddie felt part of his soul join the status of those in the garage as he folded the paper and shoved it behind the map taking up space in his coat. Now he desperately needed something to occupy himself, and if he couldn’t find any cigars to his liking in Inkwell, he was sure to sniff out some disguised bar and order a pint or two against prohibition’s smug and stupid face.

“Gosh, poor, poor Pinky,” the detective sighed out, slightly lowering his head in what respect he could give the name. A porter suddenly tapped his shoulder, making him jump. “Yeah?”

“Telephone for you, sir.”

Odd, Eddie wasn’t expecting any calls, not from work and certainly not from home. Nevertheless, he straightened up and followed the gentleman to one of the little booths dotted around the train station, picking up the receiver and clearing his throat.

“Hello?”

“Oh, for goodness sake Eddie! I ask you to call me at six o’clock to check in and you’ve got me fretting like some damsel for two hours.”

“Dolores?”

“Why so shocked? You expecting Mary Pickford?”

Eddie chuckled and relaxed his shoulders from the tension of hearing that ghastly news headline. “No, I’m expecting a call from her next Tuesday.”

The sarcastic brunette on the other end scoffed. “Oh, you.”

“I’m actually surprised to hear from your neck of the woods. What’re you still doin’ up, old lady?”

“Someone’s gotta put food on the table while you’re gone, you know that.”

“Come on baby, don’t talk like that,” Eddie half scolded, half pleaded, already massaging a headache out of one temple. “You know I’ve gotta show these Chicago bums a thing or two about justice. I bet it ain’t even in their vocabulary. This world would be a black-and-white mess if it weren’t for guys like me.”

“Gee, never heard you _this_ humble. Case must’ve sucked the life outta you.”

 _Not to me_ , Eddie kept inside his head. Papers shuffling and clinking glasses on the other end of the line stole his attention for a moment, and though he couldn’t see her, Eddie knew his girl was stressing herself silly over a night shift at the restaurant she worked at. If she could survive on those shitty tips, endure those shittier guys usually asking for a pop in the mouth, and fall asleep in the shittiest apartment in Claremont, then more power to her.

God, he missed her like crazy.

“Well look hon, I didn’t call to talk your ear off,” Dolores spoke softly, having sensed Eddie’s mood through the phone like a true woman. “Don’t worry about me, okay? I’m holding the fort easily over here. Just know if anything or anyone’s bothering you, you can spare 5¢ and I can spare my beauty sleep.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that,” Eddie started to tease as a train whistle blew. “I’d like to come home to my beautiful girl, not to Nosferatu.”

“You’ll be joining the living dead if you make a crack like that again.” Eddie grimaced around the innocent jab, feeling the newspaper crinkle against his shirt. “I love you Eddie.”

“I love you too, Dolores. I’ll see you soon.”


	9. Like Jell-O on Springs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All dolled up and set for Florida, Brinda and Boreese have nothing to lose.

“Florida Limited leaving on Track Seven for Washington, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville and Miami. All aboard. All aboard!”

The call of the announcer’s voice reverberated off the train station’s walls. From toons to humans, everywhere was bustling activity enough to make your head spin. Porters tipped their hats to the chattering women, men helped carry the luggage, and children hopped and skipped around in their innocent games before they were due to leave with their families.

Two doglike toons chased after their sister down the platform, all three nearly colliding into a pair of rather hefty legs in rolled stockings. Those legs immediately came to a stop, stepping to the side to let them pass, then started up again at an accelerated pace. A smaller pair eventually caught up, unusually tiny high heels sloppily clunking on the ground with each step.

“ _Ow!_ ” Bendy stopped to massage his new ankle injury, scowling up at his ‘girlfriend’. “I don’t understand how they walk in these things. How do they keep their balance?”

Boris rolled his eyes. “Must be the way the weight is distributed. Come on, we’re nearly there.”

Both fellas’ short dresses, coats with cheap fur pieces, and blonde wigs under rakish cloche hats earned a few odd looks from their unsure feminine gait. Fires of fury, discomfort, and uncertainty were smoldering in Bendy’s eyes as he weighed the pros and cons of what he and Boris were stupidly getting themselves in to − even if it had been his own stupid idea. Boris seemed to be handling matters much better than him; determination drove him on to strut like a high-class woman walking into her own destiny.

“You look like something’s stuck in your skirt. Stop trying so hard.” Bendy had meant for it to sound like a tease, but it came out sounding more annoyed.

“Just trying to think girl,” Boris told him. “Take a page out of my book. You’re walking like you pulled something.”

“Yeah? Well I’m two seconds from pulling this stupid wig off. It’s on—”

A gust of wind sent the complaint in the air along with the complainer’s skirt billowing like he was over a subway gate. Bendy scrambled to push the material down, glaring at whatever smitten chuckles and whistles he heard over from the sides.

“Eyes up fellas!” He barked out, tightening the fluttering material in between his legs. “Gosh, is it drafty under here. Girls must be catching cold all the time.”

“Will you quit stalling? We’re gonna miss the train,” Boris growled low in his throat.

“I feel naked. Like everybody’s starin’ at me.”

“With those legs? Are you crazy?”

The two exchanged exasperated scowls, each for different reasons, and picked their feet back up to approach the Pullman car reserved for the girls’ orchestra. Characters from adorable toons to swell-looking gals each had her own instrument and luggage, and innocent gossip to loud chortles playfully swirled above the train whistle as they stopped to be checked by a taller blonde dame and a short tubby man.

Watching all those figures walking and plump lips smiling made Bendy nervous for all the wrong reasons. “It’s no use Boris. We’ll never get away with it,” he whispered out the corner of his mouth.

“The name’s Boreese and this was your dumb idea in the first place,” Boris shot back with no remorse. “So don’t go crying to me now.”

Bendy clicked his teeth, a couple of “unladylike” jabs he was going to enjoy watching Boris crumble over ready on his tongue, yet the physical embodiment of a dark mystery silenced those lashes. He did a double take and nudged Boris in the side, the wolf looking behind him just in time to catch a curvy cutie clicking down the platform, with silent swaying hips that loudly made her presence known to everyone. She carried a valise and ukulele case, with her black painted lips curled in a tired pout as she hurried past two gawking eyes.

While Bendy and Boris couldn’t do a thing without blowing their cover, one of the trains got to be the lucky son of a bitch when one of its pipes let out some excess hot steam, smacking the ebony lass straight in the rear.

Like a note out of his saxophone, Bendy whistled low. “Look at that, look how she moves! It’s like jello on springs.” He couldn’t help staring after Miss Tall, Curvy and Beautiful. “She must have some sort of built-in motor. I tell you it’s a whole different sex!”

Boris snapped out of the daze to give him a bewildered look. “What are you afraid of? Nobody’s asking you to have a baby. We gotta be smart about this, because suppose it won’t be that easy?”

Bendy groaned in his hand. “Oh, here we go.”

“Yeah, here we go!” Boris snapped, rudely nudging the imp to the side.

“Look Boris, you were smart enough to hitch a ride on this idea for once, and I’m makin’ a promise right here and now that the minute we hit Florida, we’ll blow this set-up. Deal?”

“Bendy, I may as well have signed away something more on this deal, and if things don’t go right—”

A small black cat with a white snout and large eyes sped past the traveling toons, peddling his papers and shouting, “ _Extra! Extra!_ Seven Slaughtered in North Side Garage! Feared Bloody Aftermath!”

“—we’ll discuss it in Florida, Brinda.”

“Atta girl, Boreese.”

The boys hurried toward the Pullman car, imitating the jello-on-springs walk as best as they could. They clumsily put on the brakes when the last set of brass players were helped on the train.

Boris nodded his head in a half bow and smiled politely, taking on that faint soprano tone again. “Well, here we are.”

“Are you two from the McDuck Agency?” The blonde asked hopefully, pointing a pen back and forth between the pair.

“Yes, we’re the new girls.”

“Brand-new!” Bendy seconded, his own soprano a bit too gruff but nobody bat an eye.

“This is our band manager, Doc,” the blonde introduced, turning to the short man tipping his hat before pointing to herself, smiling proudly. “And I’m Swingin’ Sally, sweethearts.”

“Call me Brinda, sweetheart,” Bendy mimicked, waving his hand and giggling under his breath.

“And I’m Daphne,” Boris said.

Now that was completely out of left field. Bendy threw him a sharp look and made a confused noise in his throat, but Boris continued smiling brightly at the pair in front of him checking over the clipboard in Doc’s hands.

“Ah, saxophone and a bass. Are we glad to see you girls!” The dwarf explained, chuckling heartily. “You’ve saved our lives.”

“Likewise, I’m sure,” Boris replied, still being stared at incredulously by Bendy for changing his name.

Sally’s smile this time wasn’t big and bright as she studied her new musicians a little further. “Do you mind me asking you girls where you’ve played before?”

Bendy started screaming on the inside. “Oh, not at all,” he responded with a second wave of the hand. “Uh, _Daphne_ and I have played wondrously in cities and quaint towns, you know, here and…there, and around. _Heh-heh._ ”

“We’ve spent three years at the Sheboygan Conservatory of Music before settling down for the help.” Boris to the rescue.

But even if his answer sounded like solid gold to Bendy, Suspicious Sally was still eyeballing them while Doc continued grinning and bouncing on the balls of his feet. He did a double take at the blonde’s strange expression and joined in on the staring contest as if he were trying to lend a hand in figuring out what was wrong with these two new girls. Thankfully, time was not on either one’s side and the conductor shouted a final “all aboard!”

“Welcome ladies. You’re in Berths 7 and 7A,” Doc said, his smile returning.

Boris nodded his head in another bow as Bendy clamored on board without so much as a thanks. “Thanks ever so,” the wolf spoke for both himself and the impatient demon.

He started up the stairs and dizzily found himself face-planting on the floor of the car from his obnoxiously high heels. The porter and Doc helped him to his feet, with the latter giving him an unneeded pat on the behind.

“Upsy-daisy,” Doc quipped.

The fur on the back of Boris’s neck bristled, but still thinking girl, he shot Doc a coy look. “Fresh!” He quipped right back.

Bendy jerked him up into the vestibule before the nonsense got further out of hand, barely hearing the balding manager talking about how McDuck really “came through with a couple of fine, _real_ young ladies.” Be that as it may, no man was going to be tapping his behind, and he stopped Boris beside the baggage rack to swat his leg hard.

“You let that old bird spank you again and I’m gonna throw up,” he snapped sourly. “And _Daphne?_ ”

The wolf shrugged. “Boreese made me sound old and senile.”

Bendy couldn’t say much more as Sally and Doc appeared from the vestibule, chattering quietly, and both he and Boris sped down the aisle into the Pullman car proper. There, a throng of girl musicians crowded every inch of the train, removing their coats, settling themselves in their seats to reapply lipstick, and putting away their instruments and bags. All were blonde, all were young, and most of them (in Bendy’s taste, anyway) were pretty.

“Well you all look like a band of angels!” He cheered out in a good-neighbor drawl. “I’m on the swingin’ sax, just call me Brinda.”

There was a general slew of hi’s and hellos equally as cheerful. Boris shook his head at the melodramatic pitch Bendy was attempting to sell, but there was no point in complaining now when they were successfully moving.

“My name is Daphne. Bull fiddle,” he added a little more gentler, receiving softer but still affable hellos right back.

“Welcome to No Man’s Land,” a purple accented duck teased, fluffing her feathers in her handheld mirror.

“ _You’ll be sor-ry!_ ” The ladies chorused together.

“Take off your corsets, dear, and spread out,” a slim bluish-gray bear invited, making room by the windows.

“Oh, I don’t wear one myself,” Bendy spoke without thinking.

One of the few human toons, with curved hips and her dyed blonde hair up in a bun, blinked in surprise. “No corset? Don’t you bulge?”

“Bulge? Me?” Bendy made room for himself in between the girl and a small pig. “Hardly. I got myself the most divine little seamstress that comes in once a month, and my dear, she is so inexpensive. And she told me—”

“Come _on_ , Brinda.”

Bendy hopped to his feet, whispering behind his hand, “If we’re not working overtime, I’ll show you what I mean.”

“Brinda, behave,” Boris warned, clutching the back of Bendy’s dress and moving him forward. “You’d better quit acting like a saxophone player before I throw you off the train myself,” he snapped just for his perverse ears to hear.

“Say, kids, have you heard the one about the girl tuba player that was stranded on a desert island with a one-legged jockey?” Squeaked out a tiny and cute girl with a buttoned-nose, making Boris facepalm and Bendy jump in enthusiasm.

“No, how’s it go?”

“Now, now girls. Cut it out with all of that rough talk.” Doc’s orders made Bendy and Boris scramble to put their things away. “They went to a conservatory.”

“‘They went to a conservatory.’” The trombonist played a flat note to mock the bespectacled man, rousing up guffaws and giggles.

The boys, after a couple minor setbacks, could take it easy and finally removed their coats and stored away their luggage. 

“How about that talent?” Of course, Bendy’s way of taking it easy was talking in delighted whispers and sparing more than one glance over his shoulder. “It’s like falling into a tub of butter.”

“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve said your name,” Boris started but never finished, unable to find the energy to deal with his inappropriate ‘girlfriend’.

“When I was a kid, I used to have a dream where I was locked up in this pastry shop overnight, and there were goodies all around. Jelly rolls and mocha eclairs, sponge cake and Boston cream pies, cherry tarts…”

“Look, look, _listen_ stupid. No butter and no pastries. We’re on a diet!”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Bendy spared a final glance backwards and stood on his heels, hanging his coat across a cord running above the window. “Boy, is it hard to quit cold turkey.”

Boris snatched him away from the window and grabbed his coat to throw on an empty chair. “That’s the emergency brake, genius!”

“Now you’ve done it. Now you have done it.”

“Done what?”

Bendy gestured to his front, clutching the left side. “You tore off one of my chests.”

“Oh, for the love of− go fix it in the bathroom.”

“Well you might as well tag along, King Kong.”

Boris _tsk_ ed under his breath and led the way toward the restrooms just beyond their seats. Instinctively, Bendy made a beeline for the one marked MEN and just about broke his neck when Boris tugged him by the arm, steering him toward the first one marked WOMEN.

“Wrong door,” he hissed.

“And there goes the other one. Fresh!” Bendy hissed back, clasping his undone chest desperately. When Boris propelled him inside the bathroom by a heel to the behind, Bendy was grateful he hadn’t added any padding back there, otherwise he would’ve lost that, too. “I hate you.”

“I hate you…”

There was another customer doing her business − the dark mystery from earlier. Rather than sporting platinum blonde curls under a hat, long tangle-free waves of black fell over her shoulders. One of her legs was propped up on the leather settee, her skirt slightly raised, and she was in the process of removing a small silver flask tucked under her garter to take a swig. At the sound of Boris’s trailed off sentence, she guiltily pulled her skirt down and hid the evidence behind her with a surprise _mm!_

Both Bendy and Boris’s eyes had automatically went down to her legs and slowly back up to her face, with Boris being the first to break the ice with a stammered, “T-terribly sorry.”

The girl smiled softly and put a hand over her heart. “That’s all right. I was afraid it was Sally. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Tell what?” Bendy asked.

“If they catch me drinking again, they’ll boot me out of the band.” The girl unscrewed the flask cap and poured a shot into a paper cup, her dark eyes scanning over the pair in front of her curiously. “Are you the replacements for the bass and the sax?”

“That’s us, doll. I’m Brinda, and this here’s Bor− well, Daphne now, apparently.”

“Oh, come in, come in!” The girl giddily pulled the boys closer and slid the curtain closed. “I’m Alice Angel.”

“Angel? Is that your nickname around here?” Boris asked, resting against the wall.

“It must be. I used to be Susie Synger, but it never caught on with the boys. So I went by the nickname from a close girlfriend of mine, Allison Pendle.”

“And I’m sure you sing like an angel, too,” Bendy praised with a wink, getting a giggle from Alice.

“So people say,” she answered humbly with an unsure shrug. “I do come from a musical family. My mother is a piano teacher and my father was a conductor.”

“Where did he conduct?” Both fellas wanted to know.

“On the Baltimore and Ohio.” Curious smiles flipped to puzzling frowns, and Bendy and Boris glanced at one another. Well, that was one way to conduct, they supposed. “But honestly, I don’t swell up my own ego to get more gigs. I dabble with the ukulele and sing some too, but I don’t think I have much of a voice. Then again,” Alice murmured, finally drinking the untouched booze and refilling it, “this isn’t really much of a band. I’m only with them ’cause I’m running away.”

Bendy tilted his head to the side. “Running away from what?”

“Ugh, don’t get me started on that.” Alice extended the cup. “You want some? It’s bourbon.”

As Bendy started to reach for it, his front started to slip again and he quickly refolded his arms, grinning. “We’ll take a raincheck.”

“I don’t want you girls thinking I’m a drinker,” Alice explained after downing a cupful of bourbon. “I can stop anytime I want to, only I don’t want to. Especially when I’m blue.”

“We understand,” Boris said with a nod.

“You know that all the girls drink? But I’m the one that always gets caught. Story of my life! I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.” With an exasperated huff, Alice fit the flask back in her garter, fit a blonde wig she’d hid under her hat over her inky tresses, and readjusted her skirt. “Are my seams straight?”

“I’ll say,” Bendy purred out, examining the wonderful gams in front of him.

With a small wave of her fingers, Alice slipped past the fellas. “Well, see you around girls!” She called over her shoulder.

“Bye-bye Alice!” Bendy cackled as Boris knelt down to unbutton the back of his dress and fix the slipped brassiere. “Boris, we have been playin’ for the wrong band.”

“Down boy,” Boris cautioned him tiredly.

“How about the shape of that liquor cabinet?”

“Forget it. One false move and they’ll toss us off the train. Then there’ll be the police, and the papers, and the mob in Chicago…”

“Boy, would I love a piece of some angel food cake.”

Boris had heard more than enough; with just one hand he whirled Bendy to face him and grabbed the front of his dress, pushing his tiny nose in his large one. “I won’t say it again. No butter, no pastries, and _no. Cake._ ”

Bendy stared at him for a solid minute before slowly looking down at his chest. “Tore ’em again.”


	10. Background Check

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a full 24 hours and the boys are definitely running wild to constantly “think girl”. On the other side of town, Kaa has caught a panther by his toe, and there’s no way he is letting him go.

It was well past eight o’clock as the wheels pounded along the train tracks, the gentle hum of clacking accompanied by a spirited rendition of “Running Wild”. At one end of the car, Sally conducted her Society Syncopators to whistle, strum, and beat out the catchy jazz notes in a special rehearsal to break in her two new girls. Everyone seemed to really be swinging, just the way the professional swinger liked it, yet as the notes carried on, dainty ultra-refined plucks and squeaky fills slowly began to extinguish that red-hot flame.

Sally slowly turned on her heel from her place in the aisles, grimaced when she found the haughty sources, and rapped her baton against a seat. The girls stopped playing as she approached Bendy and Boris, pointing at their instruments in raging disapproval.

“What’s the matter with you two? Sheboygan never learned to let loose and have fun?” She spat. “What was your last job, playing square dances?”

“Funerals,” Bendy rebut.

“Well we would absolutely love it if you’d rejoin the living. Goose it up a little!”

“We’ll try,” Boris promised.

Sally shook her head and raised the baton, about to give the downbeat when her eyes fell on Boris’s bass fiddle. A neat row of bullet holes across the face of the instrument practically gleamed under the lights like a diamond from Tiffany’s.

“How in the world did those holes get there?”

“These? Oh, I’m not sure. Mice?” Boris rushed out, unprepared for a question like that.

“She got it secondhand. Her first one was stolen, and the cheap bozo wouldn’t give her a fair deal.” What would Boris do without his pal’s sharp thinking?

“Fine, fine, but I don’t want any secondhand performances in my band. Let’s take it from the top girls. And put a little heat in it!” Sally added, specifically towards Bendy and Boris.

She brought the baton down for take two, and the girls leapt into action − this time with Bendy and Boris giving it both knees. Bendy went for a wild ride on the sax, and Boris slapped and twirled the bass like a girl possessed. Sally cocked her eyebrows, amazed by the hepness of the two conservatory cats, and suppressed a chuckle as she pointed at Alice for her solo. She strut forward with her ukulele, striking like lightning, and belt out a hot chorus of “[Running Wild](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjVDc5bhHzY)”.

Bendy adjusted himself to get a better view of Alice’s backfield in motion, nearly playing another squeaky fill when his thoughts shook as fast as those hips. As the angel shimmied through the number, the hidden flask suddenly slipped out from under her garter and clanked to the floor. She froze behind her ukulele, eyes traveling a mile a minute to not look into Sally’s, who was rapping her baton furiously against the seat, stopping the music.

“ _Doc!_ ”

The elderly gent scrambled off one of the seats in the back, tossing aside a copy of _Variety_. “Yes, Sally? What is it?”

“I thought I made it perfectly clear that I don’t want any drinking in this outfit.”

Doc fiddled with his glasses, squinting down at the contraband and picking it up. “Now this won’t do. Girls, whose does this belong to? Come, come, speak up.” He gazed around at the girls who shook their heads, but one head didn’t move a muscle. “Alice, I’ve warned you…”

She glanced down at her heels, worrying her bottom lip. “Please Doc, be a dear and just yell at me?”

“I’m afraid this is the last straw, my dear. In Kansas City, you were smuggling liquor in a shampoo bottle. You had a vial of Scotch in both your heels that almost sent you off the stage in Ohio. Before that, I caught you with a pint in your ukulele!”

By the second listing, Boris had squeezed through the gang of girls and tapped the manager’s shoulder. “Excuse me, Doc? May I have my flask back?”

“Sure,” he said without missing a beat, handing it over. “Now pack your things Alice, and the next station we come to− _y-your flask?_ ”

“Yes, just a little bourbon. Must’ve slipped out.”

Doc held his hand out. “No, no, give me that, young lady.”

Boris did as told, Alice let out a courtesy laugh and smiled gratefully his way, and Bendy was ready to hit him with the saxophone. While this exchange of emotions was occurring, Sally had reverted to her harsh analysis and cocked her eyebrows again, this time not in amusement.

“Didn’t you girls say you went to a conservatory?”

“For a whole year,” Bendy affirmed with a nod.

“I thought you said three years.”

“We got time off for good behavior,” Boris put in swiftly.

Sally crossed her arms tight across her chest, tapping her foot. “In case you didn’t know,” she began with a pinched smile, “there are rules to how we swing − one, keep it hot and real, and two, there will absolutely be no liquor or men during working hours.”

Bendy suddenly turned into a blinking angel and pressed a hand to his chest. “Men?”

“You won’t have to worry about that,” Boris calmly reassured the woman despite shaking on the inside. Now they really had to watch their step and their mouths.

“We wouldn’t be caught dead with men. Those rough, hairy beasts with eight hands and unfocused eyes?” Okay, Bendy was laying it on a little too thick, but at least he was distracting. Boris was still a bundle of nerves, and his ears perked up when his pal finished with a haughty, “And they all want just one thing from a girl!”

How ironic; the player didn’t like the game. Doc’s eyes widened behind his glasses at every word, his fists going to his hips and his cheeks a bright red.

“I pardon your beg, Miss! P-pardon your Miss, beg! I−!”

“All right girls,” Sally interrupted, shooing the befuddled man back to his post and tapping her baton, “from the top again!”

On cue, the Society Syncopators waded into “Running Wild” once again with their instruments, and Alice, strumming her ukulele, smiled warmly up at Boris, a true blue pal in her book. When Boris noticed, he smiled back and winked, oddly finding his mouth watering a little, like a kid in a pastry shop.

. . . . . . . .

Once Bagheera had reached the edge of Sherman & Sherman Avenue, he stood in front of the tightly knit hobble and stared deep into the darkness ahead as if begging permission to enter.

The dwelling was long and narrow, perhaps only twelve feet wide at the front, but it stretched some thirty feet back like a giant shoe box. The wooden framed sash windows were clamped shut, and the brick work, perhaps once a robust red, looked dirty with years of Chicago grime. A small garden had been planted in front, and although it had obviously once been carefully loved, was now riddled with weeds. Despite its circumstances, the hideout loomed proudly in its rut, flanked by rows of skeletal trees crowned in crimson, swaying gently in the chilly winter wind.

Swallowing unwelcome nerves, Bagheera knocked. “Let me in, Kaa!” Five, ten, fifteen seconds passed. Nothing. He knocked again. “I know you’re there, and you know I’m out here.”

Twenty, twenty-five, thirty seconds. Still nothing. Bagheera crouched in a darkened patch of glass and cigarette butts, watching a small ray of hallway light swell through a solitary stray bullet hole in the door. He cursed under his breath and stood back up, noticing top and bottom of the door were so utterly flushed with the frame that there was no hope of jimmying it open even if he had a crowbar.

Not that he would, but he was close to attempting to use his lighter on the locks.

Soon enough, the door opened, its creaking noise bringing a chill to Bagheera’s spine. It sounded like a dying animal, crying out its pain and sorrow with its final breath.

“Oh, who does he think he’s fooling? Where does he get the gall to toy with someone like me?” Kaa’s gaze had the power to dissect, bit by bit, with the least bit of care. There wasn’t a thing you could hide from his eyes. “Have I spoken enough of your thoughts to get you shivering, or is it just the cold air?”

“May I come in?” The cat was in no mood for games.

“Certainly.”

Bagheera stepped onto the property, the carpet spongy like walking on foam. The fragrance of gin and smoke had never been apparent to him much before, but now they jumped out at him like a radio commercial jingle. Waves of nauseating perfumes of mildew and decay lying in wait leapt to anoint him, stinging his whiskers with their musky kisses. He made a pinch to the nose discreet enough and managed to play it off like it was an itch.

“Have you even stepped outside today? Seen the snow earlier?” He asked the python, eyeing the hordes of bottles and torn plastic bags in the corners. “Or a person?”

“No need. I’m very much entertained here.”

“How so?”

A flicker of gray temporarily blinded Bagheera, and he had to step back to see that Kaa had shoved the morning’s paper in his face. The headline, “VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE”, screamed out at him once again while the feature image was horror in itself; the slumped bodies of the lifeless and emaciated toons, stained in dirt, bullet holes and grit all over.

Bagheera swallowed hard and found a distraction in the paragraphs below, flitting from one word to the next in an attempt not to gaze back up at the grizzly photo.

_“Seven men in the garage…possible witness…neighbors began to gather…still alive…fifteen to twenty machine gun bullets.”_

Wait, the Pink Panther was still alive?

Bagheera snatched the newspaper before Kaa could put it away, not caring how he must have looked, and desperately scanned for those keywords he hadn’t seen when he’d bought his own copy after escorting Eddie from the library to the train station.

_“Finally the police came. Some twenty feet from the recess where the gangsters had gathered, they came upon Pink Panther. He was still alive, although he had been struck by fourteen machine gun bullets and several shotgun slugs. He was taken to F.E.P. Hospital, and French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau, who had known him since boyhood, was sent to sit beside his bed, waiting for him to regain consciousness.”_

“The helpless little lad,” Kaa crooned in Bagheera’s ear, reading over his shoulder. “What a day for this disaster to strike. They got away picking on that poor, little, helpless boy. Oh yes… Poor, little, helpless boy.”

Bagheera stepped away from the coldblooded reptile, searching his coils in a not-so-clandestine manner. “What have you done?”

“Me?” If Kaa had a halo above him, it would’ve formed from his devil horns. “I paid 2¢ for my daily news like everyone else. Forgive me if I couldn’t spare a tip. We are in dark times, dear friend.”

“Don’t lie to me Kaa.”

“How can I? Look outside for yourself; we are in dark times. No sun, no clouds, just stars and the moon.”

“What have you done? What has he done?”

“He who?”

“You know who.”

“No, who he?”

“Our who he!” The stupid cartoon exchange burned the panther’s temper, blinding his sense of judgment and the left side of Kaa’s face. “Shere Khan!”

An ironically warm trail of blood and the thinnest patch of skin glued down on his claws. Never before had Bagheera noticed how time was so much like water; that it could pass slowly, a drop at a time, even freeze or rush by. Colorful spots contoured the sides of his eyes, and he had to close one and chomp down on his bottom lip to not scream from the pain of it all.

“You have just made a s-s-s-serious mistake, my friend.” Black was creeping in around the yellow edges as if it were trying to take over. “A very s-s-s- _stupid_ …”

“N-n-now, Kaa, I was… I never meant to strike you. You know how we cats keep our claws out. It’s second nature. Let me get you cleaned up.”

“…mis-s- _stake_. My patience for you is as thin as your whiskers I should have plucked years ago. You will never address me like that ever again. Look me in the eye when I’m speaking to you.”

It was suicidal, but Bagheera squeezed both eyes shut. “No, please Kaa. Calm yourself, won’t you?”

A rib or possibly even his spleen shifted, and an involuntary intake of breath paired with bugged out eyes flew out faster than Kaa had squeezed.

“Both eyes, if you please,” the snake hissed, effortlessly putting the kitten in his place. “Good boy.”

A laugh like a natural spring rumbled from above, the chuckles deepening the blackness both in and out of the house.

“My, that was pathetically beautiful.” Khan glided down the stairs and couldn’t help a soft applause as he joined Kaa’s side. “Bravo, bravo. An extraordinary performance. And thank you for detaining my victim.”

“Don’t mention it, your high _ness_.”

Khan, in a rare display of generosity, spared his handkerchief for Kaa’s fresh injury. He eagerly took it with the tip of his tail, keeping Bagheera stabilized in his coils, while the tiger strolled closer to the cloudy-eyed cat.

“Hello again, dear old friend. Not quite the reunion I’d have pictured, but I won’t be ungrateful.” Khan’s prideful smile flipped. “Unlike you. How many times have you starved yourself for adrenaline and had to lay low? Do you truly believe you can survive on humility and intellect alone in these streets?”

Bagheera’s jaw slowly unhinged from its slack demeanor, but Khan pushed it closed with the tip of his claw. “You wouldn’t need to if you were competent,” he interrupted whatever it was the panther had to say.

“And aiming to kill,” Kaa snarled, patting his eye. “If you really wanted to kill me, you wouldn’t have hesitated.”

Khan raised a paw to silence the irrelevance and placed himself in Bagheera’s mind, his gaze both of a wise scholar and a bloodthirsty murderer.

“I hear you have a new friend. Eddie Valiant. Is that correct?” A dumb nod. “A wild guess, but you two must have bonded over talking behind my back. You know, that little stunt he and the ‘panther’ pulled at my parlor wasn’t very appreciated. Did you two discuss that?” Another nod.

“I’ll bet he would’ve killed for better,” Kaa muttered, flicking his tongue in distaste and unconsciously starting to constrict Bagheera tighter.

“He would.”

Kaa stopped squeezing, and for once in his life, Khan looked surprised.

“What was that?”

“He…despises toons. Spits at them. Toon…hurt his brother. Hospitalized…” It was like Bagheera was struggling against the hypnosis controlling his mouth or trying to remember the information properly.

Either way, this was a diamond mine for Khan. “How do you know all of this? Did Eddie tell you this?”

Silence followed, and Khan couldn’t get anything else out from Bagheera other than the same slow “he despises toons, spits at them, toon hurt his brother” monologue.

“Kaa, do me a favor. Keep him here overnight. Be hospitable, give him a room, and see to it that he’s comfortable.”

“Where will you be?”

“Don’t miss me too much. I’ll be back.” Khan smirked, slinking his tail in Bagheera’s pocket and fishing out his lighter as he passed. “The night is still young. I’m sure Bagheera would love a gift, too.”


	11. The Moon Shines Just Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What’s in the waters on Inkwell Isles if time differences, talking appliances, and the literal spawn of hell owning a casino on a shrinky-dink island doesn’t concern Eddie in the slightest?

At first glance, Inkwell Isle seemed like the kind of place retired folk went to, or a safe haven for the young and dumb in love to run off to in chances of escaping the harsh judgments of eloping. But since Eddie wasn’t a natural born resident, it wasn’t his place to say he knew the island best.

Upon the rain-washed cement of the old platform near the train station, noise, noise and more noise echoed through the urban hub and up into the incomprehensibly colored sky. It was no Chicago at night, but damn near close. Younger Eddie Valiant would have celebrated with a drink when he knew he’d hit the jackpot of the next great toon case whenever he got that tingly feeling, a frisson of excitement that spread from his head right down to the tips of his toes.

Not to say that he wasn’t relatively young now, but considering he was in unfamiliar territory, he couldn’t let the buzz of the new and the thrill of the unknown distract him.

In his hotel room, Eddie rolled over on the cool sheets of his bed − er, beds. He didn’t know the size equivalence of an adult human vs. an adult toon in Inkwell, but he was apparently a giant if he needed three queen-sized beds pushed together in order to stretch out. Though a good portion of his legs still dangled off the sides and the blankets barely covered him.

Eddie threw what was basically an oversized bib off his legs and stared at the window with high resentment, wishing he could properly take advantage of the beautiful view of the ocean. He had opened the curtains earlier to a blue-and-orange dawn and left to go smoke so he’d get an amazing ocean scent to relax to when he got back. But he had underestimated the weather and how fast a tiny room could chill, because when he got back, his headboard was frostbitten, the smoke from his cigar had frozen over, and it took 20 minutes to pry it off his lips.

It took less than ten seconds to slam the window shut and shout all the swears known to man, cursing the stupid toon logic and already missing sunny Cali and Dolores.

“Get a grip,” the P.I. reprimanded himself, snatching his wallet off the dresser. He wasn’t on another country, or continent or whatever Inkwell was, to RSVP for a pity party. “Up, up, let’s go Eddie.”

Darkness had not yet surrendered to the light, but he could see the thick clouds overcasting the sky. The ocean was no longer an abyss of black, nor did it appear blue. Instead it looked a metallic gray, glistening as the occasional spear of light from the distant lighthouse danced over the surface.

Eddie kept his eyes straight like you were supposed to do in the city. He didn’t know who was who or what they did, and he wasn’t about to find out by eyeballing the wrong fellow’s dame or stepping on someone’s shoes. He was city savvy, from L.A. to Chicago, and now apparently to Inkwell Isle Three. Seriously, whoever founded the metropolis must have been one lazy bum or a smartass.

Aside from the other main isles − the first a slightly rural area, with meadows and forests, and the second themed around a carnival for some reason − there were rumored to be more tiny islands with other inhabitants, but both were said to be “unfinished” and “unused.”

 _Whatever the hell that means_ , Eddie silently griped, sidestepping a blonde and brunet couple. _Geeze, how small are these people? The only thing giving that man some height is courage to wear that top hat in public._

The streets soon merged to sidewalks, and sidewalks transitioned to cobblestone, then to grass and uphill to a sanded and bumpy terrain. Looking down when his shoe got caught on something, Eddie gave a start to see his heel had snagged on part of a train track. By the looks of the area and a lack of a depot, the tracks were most likely abandoned years ago or part of an unfinished project that never saw the potential to be something. 

That was kind of sad.

Eddie gave a few yanks of the foot and stumbled, palms flying forward onto something fuzzy. Almost like a welcome mat, three crescent-shaped foundations stacked on one another like steps were what he had fallen on. Six sets of lights, three on either side and each one linked together in velcro, barely lit up a jagged cave-like entrance to God knows where. On his feet and taking a cautionary step back, Eddie felt his heel snag onto something once more.

Eleven indents in the ground spelled out “TRY YOUR LUCK” with two golden stars in between the words.

_What the hell?_

Adding on to his shouldn’t-be-surprised-‘cause-they’re-toons-but-still-surprised list, an effervescent sign radiating strong Las Vegas vibes performed a light show atop the peak of the cave’s height:

_Welcome. Casino Entrance._

Eddie read the words nice and slow, almost tricking himself into believing it was because he couldn’t really see the sign all the way up there and not because his stomach had suddenly opened up a butterfly exhibit. He wasn’t too surprised to find some place hidden off for adults. From what he had gathered from the scarce history synopsis back in Chicago’s library and from Bagheera’s mouth, Inkwell was just a series of small interconnected land masses all sharing the same name. Fairly similar to the Bahamas and just off the coast of Florida, Inkwell pretty much supported Eddie’s previous theories on it being a choice of travel for the retired or a safe haven for others.

Even criminals.

Laughing at the thought of stumbling across some form of cartoon-y mobster or rubber hose animated gangs, Eddie marched forward into the cave and was instantly swallowed by the eternal night inside.

“Son of a bitch!”

For a moment too long the darkness’s inky spittle acted as a dark tiger, savoring its tasteful prey of ignorance, and Eddie wanted to kick himself for using a tiger, of all animals, in comparison to spook himself further. He patted his pockets to locate his lighter, a minuscule flame of light better than none at all. Once or twice he ran into the walls, he scuffed up his shoes plenty of times and knocked his funny bone silly when he feared he’d gone in circles.

None of this could take the cake when he swore on LAPD that he heard whispers somewhere deep in the dark. A few sounded intelligible, like they were saying _no dice_ or _oh nice_ , but a majority of the murmurs sounded like a gurgled drunk or dead language. There was no wind, and were it not for the biting cold sweat Eddie had crossing through, he wouldn’t have noticed the air at all. It was tinder dry and felt thick as he breathed it in, coating the inside of his throat and dehydrating him every bit as fast as summer heat.

Tension was all over like static the further Eddie trekked, and after what felt like hours of dragging his feet, he physically felt his thoughts, pains and worries he never knew he had silently burn into smoke as he was abruptly exposed to a blindingly exciting palace that definitely screamed Las Vegas.

The casino was two stories high and had a one story extension flanking either side for an outdoor lounge and gated off area presumably for the owner. Red carpeting stretched out like a gala event from the top of the steps, and six large dice sculptures rested on both sides of elongated columns leading up to the golden plated door. The most ardent piece of architect, besides the seven mammoth volcanoes Eddie hoped to God were just props, was the enormous statue of a black horned creature behind the casino sign, gripping two blue poker chips in its claws and grinning up at the sky with yellow pie-shaped eyes as if he knew something Eddie didn’t.

Standing on a slight rise of terrain and smugly looking over a broad spread of gravel, Eddie could tell this place was an intimidatingly large result of years of hard labor on the back of desperate and probably swarthy workers. He’d be a fool to hit the road, but an even bigger fool to carelessly be swept into the hype of gambling and be the new fish on the hook.

He made a quick promise and said a quick prayer that he would get through this, even if it killed him.

Taking a deep breath, Eddie pushed open the heavy doors and had an epiphany of the bootleg raid he had helped bust the other night. The heat and humidity of the evening was replaced by the cool breezes the patrons and subservient staff created by their moving bodies, zipping from slot machines to poker, the wide open bar to waiting tables respectively. A live band played for twin fly dancers on stage, their skirts about as high as gas prices in New York City, and soft lighting ran along the ceiling, refracting off the colorful heads of toons of all ages, species and sexes.

What made Eddie immediately regret stepping inside was how hard he breathed out, and how a rush of excitement buzzed through him like a Cola bottle without his consent. It was like some invisible presence was tempting him to _relax and enjoy_ the perfumed atmosphere of the gambling den, and to let loose by the swinging jazz and overdose on a surging shot of adrenaline.

With a hard shudder, the private dick had to give credit where credit was due. This place was no speakeasy. It was the real deal.

He made a beeline for the bar, sitting two spaces down from a skeleton of a racing horse and a…floating 8-ball. Eddie happened to hear a snippet of a conversation, going something like:

“…willing to take a chance on your idea, but it didn’t pan out.”

“He’s sinking more money into it tonight?”

“You can’t be that surprised.”

“Can’t I?”

It was brief, confusing and out of place, but then again so were toons and their upside down worlds. Eddie couldn’t care less and rested his hat between his legs, absentmindedly drumming his fingers on the counter while he waited for the bartender. He hoped the currency on Inkwell matched or at least would be accepting of the American dollar. That was one of few things he regretted not digging deep into; the currency rate exchange.

How the hell was he going to pay for a drink? Let alone his hotel, a hospital bill if he got hurt, or food and other necessities.

Eddie cursed below his breath at the thoughtlessness, taking out his wallet to count how much he had. $125. Not exactly a rich man’s utopia, but enough to scoot by for at least three days and two more nights.

The hair on the back of his neck rose as sharp as the whistle in his ear was, followed by a gravelly, “Lucky night buddy?”

If the skeleton horse had a nose, Eddie would kindly ask that he get it out of his business. He looked the animal − or really, the remains of the animal − up and down, having half a mind to physically push him back. But Eddie didn’t know what he was capable of. For all he knew, he could’ve been packing heat, a regular customer and violent drunk, or the owner.

He dealt his cards out one at a time. “Nah, just lucky enough to have a job.”

The horse sneered at him. “Oh, you think you can just come up in here and wave around your pathetic greens like we don’t have any?”

 _Crap_. How was he going to shuffle his way out of this one? How bad did he offend the horse? Did he recently get the ax? Was this island going through some sort of depression? Must be a pretty light depression if a casino, of all places, was where most of these island dwellers were putting their savings in the hole.

The 8-ball floated to the horse’s side, nudging his face into its ribs. “Can it, will you? You struck up a conversation and he’s keeping the flame lit.”

Eddie breathed a sigh out relief out loud and covered it quickly with a cough. “Yeah, no worries pal. I’m not trying to one-up you or anything. All of this came from hard work.”

The 8-ball turned to him curiously. “You a tourist or somethin’? Never seen you working up a factory or field.”

“Ever been to L.A.? You can make it big out there with the right head on your shoulders.”

“Oh, you think you can just come up in here and razz us islanders up?” The horse got no-nose-to-nose with Eddie, making the latter blink as he stared into those large, empty sockets. He thought he would have seen the rest of the casino through those eyes, but he was staring into what he had gone through to get inside in the first place − pitch black. “We too good for your stupid Holly-wood and silent stages and palm trees? We got them here, too, so why don’t you take a—”

“Phear Lap, shut up!” What an odd name for a race horse. Maybe it was a play on words, like, ‘fear the lap this mustang can do for you.’ So stupid. “What are you doing around these parts, Mister…?”

“Eddie. Just call me Eddie.” Drat, now he had to entertain a nosy pool ball and ill-tempered whiny pony. “I don’t feel like opening up my autobiography. Hope you understand I’m not trying to be rude. I got off the train a couple hours ago and my head’s killing me.”

“This won’t make it any better.”

At the different voice, Eddie turned to see the bartender with his head reminiscing a thin gray mug. He had quite the honker, like a big blueberry had jumped and made a home between his small eyes. He smiled at him without a trace of mockery, cleaning a spare glass and looking at Eddie expectantly. He was waiting for him to order.

“What do you recommend?” Eddie asked, ignoring Phear Lap’s muttered ‘a quick exit on the rocks.’

“It depends on what whets your appetite. We’ve got just about everything you can name.”

Eddie hummed out a chuckle, trying to play the nice guy in such a strange world. “Dangerous words for a man like me.”

The mug returned the display of geniality with a shy grin. “You sound like my brother,” he mumbled, or at least that’s what Eddie thought he had heard. It was enough to get his own curiosity pumping. “Now, for your poison. You look like you’d enjoy the—”

“Give him One Hell of a Time.” Great, the _neigh_ -sayer had opened his mouth again.

The 8-ball shook his…face? Whole body? “No, no, give him a dry Rugged Ridge. He’ll like that and thank us later.”

“Guys, guys, this isn’t my liver we’re talking about.” The mug-headed server glanced back at Eddie, looking like he needed a drink himself. “Ignore them. Anytime someone new comes in…” He waved away whatever he was going to say by plucking a bottle from behind him. “I could just pour you some Scotch.”

 _Nice to know Chicago never left._ “I’m off that stuff. Get me this Hell Time or whatever it’s called.”

If it was strong enough to beat his headache, heck, he’d take a whole bottle of the stuff.

The cup-themed bartender didn’t try to hide his annoyance at the two odd characters by Eddie’s side and stepped away to prepare his drink. Eddie tried to see what exactly was in this One Hell of a Time concoction, but the bottles were all shades of colors he never knew existed and their labels were scrawled in some kind of hieroglyphics.

Not to mention his buddy Phear Lap had returned to run laps around his nerves. “You mentioned you got here by train. You visiting friends?”

“Just a solo trip. I can afford it.” Unable to resist cutting in to the horse’s eminent catchphrase, Eddie smirked and added, “I just got my bonus. Tonight I’m putting on the Ritz.”

The soulless sockets on Phear Lap’s face bent down. The 8-ball sighed to himself and bit down on the horse’s green visor, tugging it backwards.

Eddie couldn’t resist another shot. “What, you lost a week’s salary on a hayburner at the track? Was it your pops?”

“Watch what you say, Bub, or I’ll pop you one in the kisser.”

The humorously empty threat earned a loud chuckle from Eddie and a bold wave of the hand to dismiss the loudmouth, who was already being dragged off to another table by the pool ball and throwing nasty glares over his shoulder.

“Toons…” He muttered under his breath, placing his hat on the counter and thankful for some peace.

He cast a few scattered glances at the other gamblers, drinkers and smokers, tuning into some interesting conversations like a perverse ‘level with me: did you really take Jeanette MacDonald out?’ Or a confused, ‘I think he is on the up and up when he says he owns twenty-seven banks’.

It was a casino after all, a place where gossip and a person were both left empty-handed. Everyone was attempting to appear proper in their high end suits and swirling gowns despite the crass rating. Eddie and the bartender were the only ones that looked normal, but he guessed normal was relative. The joint was a fancy place all right, a sort of minimalist-classical, but that was okay for him.

His suit wasn’t too shabby, so he could melt into this place and vibe and move around as easily as the smoke. He was soaking in the laughter, the smiles, and the profanity like he was meant to do, nodding his head along to each octave from the band and letting a harmless flirt or two reach the ear of two foxy blonde dames. _But, but, but,_ he had to make necessary pit stops in reality instead of loitering in his wild new world.

He was no careless toon. He was life-size, real. And he was there on business.

“Mister Eddie, was it? Do you need to sit down?”

Eddie could hear the voice but couldn’t exactly pinpoint it. Only one of his senses was properly working, and that was his wide eyes seeing the muted colors of the bottles and the glitter that found every spark of light.

“Who’s speaking?”

“Me. Mugman. Your bartender? Should I telephone someone for you?”

Something shifted beneath Eddie’s feet, and he wasn’t sure if his shoelaces had come undone or if a dwarf had bundled past him. Then he recalled one, this wasn’t Disney, and two, his shoes didn’t have laces.

“What?”

His arm was grabbed in a not so luxurious way to prevent him from falling back. His feet blindly criss-crossed in front of one another as his body was squished on one of the barstools. He didn’t want anything else to drink. He wanted to go back to his hotel to shower, sleep it off, and start over in the morning. He _was_ staying in a hotel, right? Was this casino part of it? Where was his floor?

“What the hell did you put in my drink?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t sir me, Mugly. You put a Mickey in my drink! The hell do you think you’re dealing with?”

In a rage, sparking with great fury and starting up from his seat, Eddie suddenly felt young and futile. His uneven furor turned to blustering in his ears as he made a grab for the blue server, but missed.

“Y-you asked for five!” Mugman exclaimed, holding his hands up. “I tried to stop you, but you’d stumble off to the floor every time I’d—”

“Level with me, you filthy sneak − you like taking advantage of people? You think it’s funny exploiting half of these dopes?” Eddie fished out his LAPD identification from his thinning wallet. “You think I won’t drag you down myself?”

“Please calm down, sir.”

“I’ll throw every toon in this damned casino in jail!”

Eddie gave a start, ready to make a grab for someone or something, but his arm was nearly snatched out of its socket when someone grabbed at it from behind. That was the only thing on his body that hadn’t moved, and he wound up slamming his stomach into the edge of the bar and coughing up something he hoped were the five drinks he’d downed.

“You’ve got the right idea of this being a damned casino, but what good would the police do?”

Eddie turned at the indiscernible accent in his ear. It was like some bouncing Australian dialect mixed with the acidic tongue from the Bronx and the proper dignity of an Englishman. It was oddly soothing to his ears, but the man he took in was like a bad drug trip to his eyes.

A six foot tall humanoid being with a floating die for a head due to a lack of a neck held him away from the bar like he was a child misbehaving. The one-sided part of a die acted as a small purple nose on his face, where a thin black mustache twitched almost irritably, and humanistic black pie-eyes stared down at him almost disdainfully.

Eddie sucked his teeth and tried twisting free. “You the schmuck who owns this place?”

“Close. I’m the schmuck who manages this place,” the die-man coolly answered. “What seems to be the problem here?”

“Do you go around giving the O.K. to your workers to embalm people? You know the time it’ll earn ya, buster?”

“That is not my name nor is that a concern of mine. Now would you care to escort yourself out of the casino if you’re just going to cause a ruckus, or shall I delight in throwing you out myself?”

Eddie gave a boiling glare. “Do you know who I am?”

The literal blockhead smirked back. “Are you that intoxicated that you’ve forgotten, sir?”

“Take a wild guess at what LAPD stands for, you square. Better yet, take a wild guess what the police do to criminals like you during Prohibition.”

“Prohibition?” The manager gave a curt, single laugh. “Do you honestly believe we’re intimidated by the consequences if we don’t participate in this ‘noble experiment’ of the law?”

Eddie was finally able to free his arm and step back, albeit a bit off balanced from his alcohol-impaired 4/5 senses. “You won’t be laughing when this place crashes and burns,” he spit out.

“Dead men tell no tales.”

In this slow time-bubble in a literal hell spot, the music was louder, the air was hotter, and colors were brighter. All the while Eddie’s insides felt as if there was nothing there, nothing to need feeding, nothing to have need of anything at all. He turned, too slowly to be normal as if some inexperienced person was controlling him remotely, and his eyes were hard, looking right at _him_ , but not really.

“Welcome home, Eddie Valiant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 300+ hits! Thank you guys, gals and pals for reading this cartoon-y hodgepodge! I hope you’re enjoying this story as much as I enjoy getting another chapter out :)
> 
> A special shoutout to SwiftWindSpirit for being so kind and sending out comment after comment. I’m really grateful for the feedback and what you think of this. Thank you sweetheart!!
> 
> Stay safe everyone!


	12. I’m a Girl, I’m a Girl, I’m a Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bottle of bourbon, a train to Florida, a beautiful angel grateful for his bravery… What more could a girl need?

Well past the hours of anyone’s bedtime but only the appetizer of a swinging night for fellas like Bendy and Boris, the berths were neatly made up and the girls were getting ready for forty winks. While prim and proper “Daphne” stood in the aisle beside Lower 7, draping his dress neatly on a hanger, fidgety night owl “Brinda” sprawled out on his stomach in Upper 7, watching his favorite picture: When Broads Go By.

Ladies in negligees, robes and nighties scurried in and out with their wash-kits, climbing into lowers and uppers, playfully pinching a dangling bare leg and gossiping about what Florida would hold for them.

“This is heaven. Say, why didn’t we think of this before?” Bendy whispered down to Boris, who shot him a dirty look that no amount of soap could wash away. “Relax you wet rag, I’m only− goodnight Fanny! I’m only teasing. I’m just as− Cindy dear, sweet dreams and pleasant thoughts! I’m just as stressed as you.”

“Yes dear, I can tell by your tone. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“Listen you, I’m not trying to flirt up this whole train. And you know I could. We gotta make girlfriends with everyone so no one suspects a thing.” Bendy tugged Boris’s ear closer. “It’d be real crushing news for them to hear of a sax and bass _dead_ at the hands of Shere Khan when it reminds them of sweet Brinda and helpless Daphne when they up-and-go missing, too, wouldn’t it?”

Boris yanked his ear back. “Yeah, yeah.”

“So don’t kid yourself. Have a little fun with it,” Bendy urged, resting his chin in his hands and smirking around at all the open curtains.

Boris scoffed, but at the moment he was willing to do anything to get the tricky demon to shut up. Turning to his side, he waved at one of the upper berths and said a polite “nighty-night, Daisy.”

The duck in her purple laced nightgown waggled her fingers. “Toodle-oo, sugar,” she replied as sweet as the substance itself.

Boris felt his tail beginning to thump against the berth in approval. “Gee, how about that toodle-oo?”

Bendy chuckled when he saw this and leaned over to pat his head. “Steady boy. We can watch from the sidelines, but can’t afford any fouls. We gotta keep telling ourselves, ‘I’m a girl.’”

“I’m a girl,” Boris softly repeated.

“That’s the girl.”

Like an incantation, the boys mumbled those three words to themselves, focused on getting a good night’s rest, yet that focus might as well have been on a pinwheel. It went up to its peak when Betty Boop and Nell Finwick scampered past in half-buttoned, shorter than short silken coverups. They waved to the boys and continued their idle chat, unaware of the enamored eyes glued on their tiny derrieres.

“Get a load of that rhythm section!” Bendy exclaimed under his breath, getting a glare from a guilty Boris after he’d forced his tail to stop wagging. “I-I’m a girl. I’m a girl. I am a girl…”

His eyes strayed down the aisle and automatically went towards Upper 2, where all that was there were dangling legs being stripped of stockings. That was all the identification he needed.

“Goodnight, Alice!” Bendy called out.

Alice stuck her head out, turned, and giggled. “Goodnight, honey!”

“Honey… You heard that? Heard it right from the angel’s mouth? She called me honey.” Bendy’s own legs started swinging like some fool struck with Cupid’s bow. He giggled in his palms and jumped down to get settled in his lower berth, but snorted out in surprise when Boris lifted him. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

“I just want to make sure that honey stays in the hive,” Boris explained, placing Bendy back on the upper. “There will be no buzzing around tonight.”

“Come on bud, you know heights ain’t my thing.”

“Contrary to popular belief?”

Bendy smacked the comedian hard. “You know what I mean.” He crawled towards the ladder, but Boris was quick to detach it. “Quit being a jackass and let me sleep in the lower berth!”

“I’ll sleep better knowing you won’t get the urge to sleepwalk,” Boris stated without missing a beat, arms tightly crossed and his expression unchanged.

“I have urges, but not ones that’ll get us kicked off.”

“No.”

Bendy stretched his mouth in a nasty sneer. “Aren’t you mighty selfish? Suppose I gotta go, like for a drink of water?”

“Fight it.”

“Suppose I lose and it’s an emergency.”

Boris jut a chin out to the cord running across the back of Bendy’s berth. “Use your snazzy-new coat hanger.”

Unbeknownst to the musicians, Sally was tuning in to their conversation the best she could. One hand was flipping a stomach pill while the other shook around a paper cup of water as she rocked in place in Lower 1, trying not to look like she was eavesdropping but feeling the need to hear the late-night gab.

“Doc, you know there’s something funny about those new girls?” She whispered towards the neighboring berth.

Doc glanced up from buttoning his pajama top, tilting his head. “Funny how?”

“I don’t know, but”—Sally gave her tummy two sharp pats—“I can feel it right here. That’s one thing you fellas can’t have − a woman’s intuition. It’s like having a burglar alarm go off inside of you.”

“Alright Sally, you watch your intuition and I’ll keep an eye on them for you. Alright everyone!” Doc called out, clapping his hands. “Settle down and go to bed! Goodnight, girls.”

The last few ladies climbed into their births, calling out _goodnights_ and _sweet dreams_ as the lights extinguished to a near pitch blackness. Bendy bagged the opportunity of less eyes on him to kick Boris square in the nose when he started closing his curtain. When he reeled back, Bendy thudded to the floor and dove into the lower berth, gripping whatever he could as tight as he could.

He was that intent on sleeping on the bottom.

Growling under his breath, Boris knew he would’ve gotten away with a few slugs to the demon’s head had Doc not popped out from the noise and called out to him that it was lights out. Having no choice, Boris hauled himself into Upper 7, purposely letting his left leg kick inwards and smirking when he made contact with either a nose or a behind.

“Goodnight, _Daphne_.”

“Goodnight, _Brinda_.”

Clicking off his own light and failing to get comfortable under the covers, Boris let the sheep he was counting in his mind wander into unknown territory. He hoped and prayed and was willing to take Lady Luck out to dinner if it meant that he and Bendy would survive undetected. Daphne and Brinda, now really! How stupid could they be?

“I’m a girl, I’m a girl,” he grumbled, clasping his hands over his stomach as a headache plucked his nerves like his bull fiddle. “I wish I were dead. I’m a girl, I’m a girl…”

The train rumbled and shook with each wheel across the track in rhythm of the tired canine’s woe that did the trick in lulling him to sleep − for two minutes. The steady snoring and pitchy whistles from Doc hit his sensitive ears to the point where he really needed to see a dentist by how hard he ground his teeth to restrain from getting up and smothering the dwarf. Boris slammed the pillow over his head and turned on his side, flattening his ears to block out the obnoxious noise and spitting out some colorful verbs the big lump could do if he didn’t shut up.

“Daphne?” He shut his yap, eyes flinging open. Someone was whispering his name. Well, his alias. Was Bendy up playing games with him? “Daphne, wake up!”

Boris slowly peeked out from his pillow and bolted upright, slamming his head on the top of the berth and stupefying his headache tenfold. His howl of pain was muffled quickly by cool, pale hands. He gave a muffled cry, this one from shock, at the sight of Alice standing on the ladder, sheepishly smiling.

“Alice!” He whispered when it was safe for her to move her hands. “What are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep without saying thank you. Thank you for covering up for me earlier. You’re a real pal.”

Boris’s mouth was dry and malfunctioning, not a handy combination. “Me, you, yeah− yes, yes. It was nothing. I just thought that us girls should stick together.”

“Oh, but you don’t understand. I really owe you one. If it hadn’t been for you, they would have kicked me off the train.” Alice nodded at Boris’s stunned expression. “I’d be out there in the middle of nowhere, sitting on my ukulele.”

“They’re off their rocker thinking they can cast such a pretty girl out in that freezing weather.”

Alice blinked three times, her dark eyes widening each time. “You think I’m pretty?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Well I don’t know. When a guy says it, sometimes he just wants to take you on a hot date and forgets your name. But when a girl says it…” Alice shrugged, fiddling with her negligee. “It’s comforting.”

 _Ouch, poor girl._ “Then I’d like to meet these guys who throw around ‘pretty’ like it’s free money,” Boris tried to joke, holding up his bicep. “Looks can be deceiving.”

Alice giggled through her nose, snorting adorably. “You’re silly Daphne. Thank you again. If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

“I know someone could think of a million things,” Boris muttered. He gave a start when Alice suddenly clamored over him and swung the curtain shut. “That’s one of them!”

“Shh! Sally’s awake,” she whispered, one of her hands returning to Boris’s mouth and her leg inches from his tail that he could feel trembling in place. “I don’t want her to know we’re in cahoots.”

“M-mhm.”

The faint outline of Sally padded sleepily down the aisle toward the ladies’ room, stumbling into a couple of the berths like a drunk. Boris lowered his ear when he was sure she had gone to do her business and looked toward Alice.

“Could I stay here until she goes back to sleep?”

“I wouldn’t throw you under the bus like that. Stay as long as you like honey.” _Honey… I called her honey._

Alice shone with a grateful smile and shuffled under the covers as little as possible to be courteous. Had he been Bendy’s size, Boris would have gladly made extra room for her, but he was just lucky he didn’t need to sleep with his knees in the air. The space was already crowded enough with his long legs and thoughts, and now Alice with her sheer negligee was added into the mix.

“I’m not crowding you, am I?” She whispered, bumping her legs into his.

“No, it’s nice and cozy.”

“Good. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as Sally comes out.”

“What’s the rush? Stay for a minute, an hour, a whole night. We’ll make a sleepover out of this and laugh in the morning.” Boris chastised himself for his stupid nerves. He was probably weirding Alice out.

Quite the opposite, he soon found out, when he picked up her giggling again. “When I was a little girl,” she sighed out nostalgically, “on cold nights like this, I used to crawl into bed with my mother. We’d cuddle up under the covers and pretend we were lost in a dark cave, and were trying to find our way out.”

Boris joined the quiet laughter with obvious forced chortles and snorts. “Oh-ho, isn’t that interesting? _Heh-heh_ …”

Alice lifted her head. “Anything wrong?”

“No, nothing.”

She put a hand to Boris’s shoulder. “You poor thing, you’re trembling all over.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

She felt his forehead. “Your head’s hot.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Her toes purposely touched his this time. “You’ve got cold feet!”

“Isn’t that ridiculous?” Boris threw out his favorite word around a wan smile.

“Here, let me warm them up for you.” Alice got as close as Boris’s tail was willing to put up with. It started thumping blindly when her feet rubbed against his. She smiled with all her pearly whites, rubbing faster. “There, you’re getting better already. Your tail’s happy! Isn’t this better honey?”

Boris had turned his head toward the emergency brake, wanting to strangle himself with it then and there as he babbled like a madman and hit his paws on the sheets. “Ye-es, I’m a girl, I’m a girl, I’m a girl…!”

“What did you say?”

“Uh, er, I-I said I’m a very sick girl.”

As fast as she had started, Alice stopped and turned for the curtain. “I’d better go before I catch something.”

“Wait, I’m not that sick!”

“I’ve got very low resistance.”

Boris didn’t realize he was holding Alice so tight by the arm, and he was glad he did. Sally’s silhouette was fumbling past them, muttering something under her breath before the slight creak of her berth signaled the coast was clear to talk again.

“Really Alice, it’s just a spout of nerves. Traveling shakes, if you will. Listen, I heard if you feel you’re coming down with something, the best thing is a shot of whiskey.”

Like a kid with the key to the pastry shop, Alice beamed. “You got some?”

“I know where to get it.”

Not believing what he was doing but desperate to squash that annoying pinch in the pit of his stomach, Boris lowered himself at the edge of the berth and parted the curtains with great care, reaching toward the suitcase at the foot of Bendy’s blankets and rummaging through it until he found their emergency bottle of bourbon for rainy days.

 _This is definitely an emergency_ , he thought, slowly pulling back up when Bendy stirred.

He froze, ready to conk him on the head if he woke up, but luckily he was just moving to face the window. With a mental sigh of relief, Boris swung his body upwards all the while Alice was doing her best to support him by the legs. That lasted about as long as Boris’s betraying tail, and he slipped clean out of her grasp like butter and conked his own head on the way down.

“Daphne?” Alice whisper-yelled, mortified.

“I’m alright,” Boris assured, shaking the cobwebs and staggering up.

“How’s the bottle?”

“Half full.” He handed it over, and his sixth sense must’ve been woozy from the fall because he didn’t hear a curtain open and didn’t feel Betty’s curious eyes on him. “Here’s a cup for you. Cheers.”

Alice began pouring a fair share for both her and her new girlfriend. “Isn’t this neat?”

“I tell you my dear, this is the only way to travel.”

“You better turn on the lights. I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“No lights. We don’t want them to know we’re having a party.”

“But I may spill some.”

“So spill it. Spills, thrills, laughs, and games.” The thought of being alone with the cute singer/ukulele player put Boris in a drunken high faster than any Scotch or Canadian ‘coffee’ could. “This may even turn out to be a surprise party.”

“What’s the surprise?” Alice asked, bouncing on her knees and already downing her shot.

“Not yet.”

“When? When?”

Boris laughed and had his cupful of bourbon, too. “Better have another drink first.”

“That’ll put some hair on your chest.”

“No fair guessing.”

A wheeze that would rival any chain smoker’s cough flew out of Boris’s mouth. He smacked his knee for good measure, only for it to be cut off when Betty, standing on the ladder outside, stuck her head in.

“This a private clambake, or can anybody join?” She whispered around a grin.

Boris made a vague shooing motion. “Yes, it’s private. Please go away.”

With a disappointed but understanding look, the button-nosed gal started down the ladder.

“Betty, have you got that bottle of vermouth still on you?” Alice suddenly whispered.

Boris watched the small exchange with wide eyes. “Vermouth? Who needs vermouth?”

“We’ve got bourbon. We can make Manhattans!”

Betty nodded vigorously, thrilled she was able to party after all. “Okie-doke. Be back in a flash.”

“Manhattans at this time of night? Alice—”

“Betty, bring the cocktail shaker!”

Boris mushed a paw over his face in exasperation, feeling that headache knocking for re-entry. “Alice, you’re going to spoil my surprise.”

Over with the bouncing Betty, she shuffled through her bags and coat to pluck out the hidden fortified wine, and doing so made her accidentally knock an elbow into Nell’s berth. The blonde’s head sleepily emerged from the curtains.

“Hey honey, what are you doing up?”

“I’m going to a party in number seven.”

Nell gasped, clasping her hands in awe. “A party? I’ve got to come along! I’ve got some cheese and crackers.”

“Swell! If you got a corkscrew to spare, bring that, too.”

The snacks already in her arms, Nell crept out of bed and crossed over to Petunia Pig. “Petunia, you awake? There’s a party in number seven. Got a corkscrew?”

“No, but Fanny has… A party? Oh, I’ve got to join! Daisy dear, did you hear?”

The duck’s eyelashes fluttered and her head was already out between the curtains. “I most certainly did!”

As silent as mice, the girls whispered and heard the self-invented invitations and began to slip out of their berths, armed with various provisions. Nighties, robe strings and negligees billowed as they giddily scuttled down the dimly lit aisle and up the ladder into Upper 7. Boris scrambled back, watching as his previous two-person berth swarmed with girls, girls, and more girls.

“Here’s the vermouth,” Betty cheerfully announced, handing it over.

“I brought some cheese and crackers in case anyone gets hungry,” Nell said.

Cindy Bear tumbled in head first. “Will ten cups be enough?”

Penelope Pitstop squeezed into the corner. “Can you use a bottle of Southern Comfort?”

Forget about his tail thumping blindly and hot head and cold feet; these girls were going to squish it, thunk it, and step on them respectively with all their clamoring!

“Please, girls, this is a private party − a party for two, _two!_ Go away, no more− _shh!_ Brinda’s downstairs, you’ll wake—” Three saltine squares were shoved in Boris’s rambling mouth after they were offered, making him choke on the dryness. _“Ack!_ No crackers in bed! Girls, go someplace else and form your own− _watch_ that corkscrew! Alice, where—”

Three more square death traps were rammed down Boris’s throat, topped with an unsightly amount of peanut butter. While squished and being fed some snacks herself, Alice still looked graceful nibbling on a thing of cheese and measuring bourbon and vermouth into a hot water bottle.

Recovering from the near death experience, Boris frantically pointed at the curtain. “Thirteen girls in a berth is bad luck. Twelve of you have to get out!” He hissed.

“Salami, anyone?” Petunia, of all toons, asked, holding up a large stick from the deli.

“Where are you getting all of this food? I’ll have ants in the morning,” Boris snapped, pushing her arm down to prevent another snack exchange.

Ants wouldn’t be the only thing biting at him. Fifi La Fume had popped out of the upper to open the lower curtains, where an oblivious Bendy stirred in place, too deep in sleep to catch the subdued noises floating down from the party upstairs.

She shook his arm. “ _Ma chérie_ , you got any maraschino cherries on you?”

Bendy’s snores hastily cut off, transitioning into a grumbled protest as he cracked his eyes open. “Huh?”

“Oh, never mind.”

In a disoriented daze, Bendy turned back to the window as the purple skunk disappeared, closing his eyes and happily returning to a fantastic dream, where he and Grace Kelly were just closing the doors on a chilly February night, looking forward to a fun taste of…

… _Maraschino cherries?_


	13. Men and Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bendy has a quick heart-to-heart with Alice, and Boris throws a party that’ll go down in the books.

Bendy finally became aware of the sounds of revelry up above, and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates at the sight of bare legs through the curtains. For once his fantasy-crazed mind was on hiatus, and as he tumbled out, he was confronted by a sight which knocked into a cocked hat the principle that two bodies could not occupy the same space at the same time.

In a triumph of engineering, fourteen girls had squeezed themselves into Upper 7. Well, thirteen girls and Boris. Not to mention the bourbon, the vermouth, the Southern Comfort, the paper cups, the hot water bottle, and all the snacks. There was a seething tangle of arms, legs and blonde heads, something Bendy would have killed for had it not been under these circumstances.

“What’s going on here? Daphne?” He jumped on the ladder and tried to see inside, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. “Girls, please move! Daphne, where are you?”

A frantic glove popped out, feeling around for Bendy’s face. “It’s not my fault. I didn’t invite them,” a strained voice whispered back.

“Girls, come on, break it up. Get out of there! Let Daphne breathe.”

“You heard Brinda. Everybody out!” Alice started heeding the order. “No, no, no, not you Alice!”

“I’m just going to get some ice.”

At this point Bendy was tugging at odd arms and legs, repeating his pleas, but the girls copied their own repetitions by reassuring him that ‘there was plenty of room’ and that he should just ‘come on in, the water’s fine’.

Throughout all of this, Alice had pried open the panel under the water fountain and dragged out a huge cake of ice. Not quite knowing what to do with it, she thrust it into Bendy’s unsuspecting hands and turned to the pile of instruments stashed between the empty seats. Unaware of the entire continent of Antarctica on his gloves, Bendy kept trying to get the girls back to their own berths.

“Come on, kids. Give up, will you? The party’s over. Everyone go home.” He gave a violent shiver and looked down. “What the hell?”

“Brinda, over here before it melts!”

Bendy glanced to the left to see Alice beckoning him over, holding a drummer’s metal brush and one of the drumset’s cymbals. She disappeared into the woman’s lounge, and not knowing what else to do, Bendy followed after her and prayed that Boris would be okay on his own.

“Put it here,” Alice instructed, pointing to the sunken washbowl.

“Alice, Doc’s gonna give you an earful when he sees this,” Bendy muttered, plopping the block in the sink.

“No kidding. You better keep a look out.”

Bendy scoffed under his breath, practically seeing his warning go straight over the girl’s head, and leaned against the doorframe. Chunks of ice started flying as Alice chopped away, nearly putting his eye out.

“What’s the matter with you anyway?” Bendy heard himself asking, shielding his face when he felt something whack him in the cheek.

Alice shrugged. “I’m not very bright, I guess.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Careless maybe. I wouldn’t hide any more flasks in my skirt if I were you.”

“No, not careless, just dumb. If I had any brains, I wouldn’t be on this crummy train with this crummy girls’ band.”

Kind of harsh to bash on whatever was bringing you income. A little ungrateful, too. “Then why’d you take this job?”

“I used to sing with male bands, but I can’t afford it anymore.”

Bendy blinked more than once. “Afford it? Have you had to pay fees to sing for them or something?”

Alice stopped chopping, her shoulders visibly knotting up with stress, and looked him square in the eye. Her dark lips pinched in a tight line and the rest of her upper body went rigid. If she had a tail, it would have probably been between her legs by how tense she had suddenly gone.

“Have you ever been with a male band?” She asked softly.

The dancing demon suddenly became a conservative gal and clutched his front tightly. “Little old me? W-why no dear, how come?”

“This studio over in New York has been scouting out musical talents the minute it opened. I didn’t know if they wanted beautiful, sexy, hot or pretty, but that’s what I’m running away from. I can’t afford the wait and teasing comments anymore. I’ve worked with six different bands in the last two years.” Back to assaulting the ice. “Oh, brother!”

“Rough?” Bendy half teased, half wanted to know.

“I’ll say!” _At least she’s honest._

“There are certain fellas you can’t trust, you know.”

“I can’t trust myself. The moment I’d start with a new band, bingo!” Alice hung her head in shame, wedging the drummer’s brush in the ice and clutching the edge of the washbowl with her other hand. “I just have this thing about saxophone players.”

Bendy instantly abandoned his lookout post, standing on his toes. “Really?”

“Especially tenor sax.”

He stood taller. “Really?”

“I don’t know what it is, but they just curdle me. All they have to do is play eight bars of ‘Come to Me My Melancholy Baby’…” Alice’s ears turned the slightest shade of pink and she let loose a moan-like noise as she hugged her front. “And my spine turns to custard, and I get goose-pimply all over! And I come to ’em.”

 _What a steal._ “That’s all?”

“Every time honey.”

Bendy grinned, resting his arms on the washbowl and cocking a thumb at himself. “You know Alice,” he began in his usual suave wave, just with a more feminine touch, “I happen to know a thing or two about playing tenor sax.”

Alice smiled down at him. “But you’re a girl, thank goodness.”

Bendy’s throat went dry. “Oh.”

“That’s why I joined this band. Safety first. Anything to get away from those bums.”

Even drier now. “Yeah.”

“Brinda, I pray that you won’t go through this. You don’t know what they’re like. You fall for them and you love ’em − you _really_ love ’em − and you think this is gonna be the biggest thing since the Graf Zeppelin.” Alice spared a second too long to scowl in his direction. Not at Bendy personally, but at her next words. “The next thing you know, they’re borrowing money from you. They’re spending it on other dames and betting on horses!”

“Not dogs?” Bendy muttered, shrinking down at the jab that hit home a bit too hard. He shook off the vague feeling of shame and continued to listen to the pining rant.

“Then one morning you wake up and the saxophone’s gone, the guy is gone, and all that’s left is a pair of old socks and a tube of toothpaste. All squeezed out.”

“Men!” Bendy at least had common courtesy to leave a note, leave with his socks on, and save half a thing of toothpaste. He wasn’t that greedy. “They never learn.”

Alice nodded, slamming tiny self-made ice cubes on the cymbal. “So you pull yourself together and you go on to the next job, and the next saxophone player, and it’s the same thing all over again. See what I mean?” She assaulted her head with two hard thunks. “Not very bright.”

“Brains aren’t everything,” Bendy tried to soothe with a kind smile.

“I can tell you one thing: it’s not going to happen to me again. _Ever_.” Alice chiseled off half of the slowly melting ice, dunking more cubes on the cymbal before collapsing in a huff on the settee bench. “I’m tired of getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.”

Bendy stiffened himself militarily and cleared his throat, the guilt frosty in his gut like he had just consumed the entire cymbal ice tray. He knew what Alice was saying was true, no matter how many times the whiskey and cigarettes and kisses under the moonlight disagreed. She had already labelled him as another no-good saxophone bum, but somehow, someway, he had to show her that she was wrong.

He had to keep his eyes on the horizon and his mind tuned to a positive future. Because really, wasn’t that what everyone needed? Alice especially.

Cindy Bear abruptly tumbled in, waving her hands. “Ice! What’s keeping the ice? The ladies are getting restless.”

Bendy quickly handed the cymbal over, took in Alice’s blue mood, and grinned. “You know, I think it’s about time I lifted that raincheck. How about a couple drinks for us?”

“Sure!”

Alice perked up a tiny bit at the sound of a drink as Cindy made her exit. “Brinda, you know I’m going to be twenty-five in September?”

Bendy joined her on the settee. “You are?”

“Mhm. That’s a quarter of a century. Makes a girl think.”

“About what?”

“About the future. You know, finding a husband, a home, cute kids. That’s why I’m glad we’re all going to Florida.”

“What’s in Florida?”

Alice tilted her head back, pantomiming a nice lounge under the sun like she was a hot dame on the beach. Betty Rubble could learn a thing or two from her. “ _Millionaires_ ,” she gushed. “Flocks of them! They all go south for the winter, like birds.”

“You going to catch yourself a rich bird?” Bendy laughed.

“I don’t care how rich he is. As long as he has a yacht, his own private railroad car, and his own toothpaste.”

Bendy laughed again. “You’re entitled.”

“It’s like shopping. You want to feel your best with what you get. Maybe you’ll meet one too, Brinda!” Alice exclaimed, hugging Bendy’s arm.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” he mumbled, turning his red face away.

“Oh, but I mean it. You’re beautiful, bright, and you blow amazing tenor sax!”

Red with a whole different reason but grinning now, Bendy shrugged. “Thanks doll. Sure, we’ll snatch ourselves a rich bird with money like Rockefeller and legs like Astaire.”

Alice made a face. “I want mine to wear glasses. Men who wear glasses are so much more gentle and sweet and helpless. Haven’t you ever noticed?”

“Never really looked at a guy with glasses before.”

Alice leaned forward, holding up a finger like she was scanning the air and lowering her lids over her eyes. Being nearsighted had never looked so hot.

“They get those weak eyes from reading, you know, all those long columns of tiny figures in the _Wall Street Journal_. They take care of a woman’s heart like they care for their glasses − tender, soft, and with a light touch.”

 _Just like your eyes_ , Bendy had to kick himself from blurting out. Sure, if he was saying it as Brinda, Alice would spark and squeal like a firework. But if in the chance he let the swingin’ demon come alive at the devil’s hour, he’d be thrown off the train and stranded in the middle of nowhere, sitting on his saxophone.

“That bass fiddle sure knows how to throw a party.” Cindy was back to hand Bendy and Alice some Manhattans, then started refilling the cymbal with ice. “Hot diggity-dog!”

 _Boris!_ Oh shoot, Bendy hoped he was alright. The wolf had his own little devil on his shoulder when it came to temptations around pretty women and long legs, but he had his limits on how much was enough.

Alice tapped his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts as she held up her cup. “Cheers to happy days,” she said with a smile.

Bendy returned her sunniness with a grin. “I hope this time you wind up with the sweet end of the lollipop.”

Bendy didn’t know it, but his worrying about Boris was in vain. As Cindy scampered back into the aisles and up the ladder, the party was really winging now. Amidst the hushed hilarity, the hot water bottle was being passed around, paper cups and crackers were flying, and cigarette smoke draped half of the berth in a silver shawl. Despite the absence of Alice, Boris was enjoying himself hugely and was currently chugging the hot water bottle as Betty had the floor, finishing the joke Doc had interrupted earlier.

“So the one-legged jockey said…!” She broke into helpless laughter, waving her cigarette around.

Boris patted her arm eagerly. “What? What did he say?”

“So the one-legged jockey said, ‘don’t worry about me baby, I ride side-saddle’!”

For the entire berth, Boris especially, the joke was excruciatingly comical. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard in order to see stars and clamped his paws over his mouth, trying to smother his wild laughter but to no avail. He smacked his knee and jolted forward in a loud hiccup.

“T-terribly sorry, I…” Another hiccup. Then another. “I must’ve had too much.”

“Rub some ice on her neck,” Petunia advised, holding out an ice cube.

Daisy took it and scrubbed it along Boris’s fur. He leapt in place with a shout, ramming his head a second time on the top of the berth, causing the ice to slide down into his nightgown.

“G-get it out!” He instinctively cried out, squirming and wriggling to get the melting water off of him. Three pairs of arms reached into his nightgown, getting him to start crying and laughing and hiccuping. “Wait, wait…!”

The girls fought against other hands to locate the runaway cube when suddenly Boris got a new shock worse than the ice and hands all over him. His ‘chest’ had torn loose from their moorings, placing him in Bendy’s shoes. He crossed his arms over his suddenly flat chest to ward off exposure, but the girls wouldn’t quit.

“Girls, girls, please stop!”

“She’s ticklish!” Fifi incorrectly guessed.

“Get her!” Fanny Zilch ordered.

“No, no, _don’t−!_ ”

All the girls pounced on Boris, showing him no mercy as they tickled and pulled at his nightgown, getting him to scream and laugh and cry louder than before. He didn’t give a damn if he woke Sally and Doc. He had to get these girls off of him!

_There’s a sentence he never thought he’d think._

In despair, his eyes landed on the emergency break, and with all his strength he grabbed for it and yanked hard. The pounding wheels from outside effectively locked and screamed to a jolting stop. More screams from the unsuspecting girls flew out as they tumbled, one by one, out of the berth and into aisles. The sudden halt shook the entire train and left no one unscathed, and Bendy didn’t know whether to thank the brakes or curse them when he and Alice flew to the floor, the latter catching him and pinning him directly on her breasts.

“W-what happened?” She stammered, out of breath.

“Search me,” Bendy replied, equally breathless on the soft pillows. He coughed hard. “I-I mean, I said I’ll see!”

He leapt up and peered out the curtains, but when a raging bull in a conductor’s hat threw open the car door and stomped inside, he backpedaled into the lounge and pressed a hand to Alice’s mouth when she started asking what was the matter.

“What gives! Who pulled the emergency brake? Speak up now!” The bull bellowed.

He was joined by an even more irritated Sally, her blonde curls unkept and her robe disheveled. “Alright girls, what’s going on around here? _Doc!_ ”

The dwarf’s snores and whistles cut off, he flopped out of his berth like a fish out of water, and fumbled to find his glasses in the dark, sleepily asking, “Are we in Florida?”


	14. Two to Tango

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Less than 24 hours in Inkwell and Eddie already feels he’s not the only one nipping at the cooking sherry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To compensate for putting this story off for a while, the next chapter (in Bendy and Boris’s perspective) will be much longer than this. Thanks for reading!

In his black judge suit, bowtie and cape, Judge Doom tipped his fedora with cold-hearted fervor. His gaze called for respect and promised severe consequences for denying him. Alive, dying, or dead, Eddie would never give this maniac the satisfaction. Just seeing those dark eyes behind those stupid yellow-tinted spectacles was enough to sober him up.

“This isn’t my home so much as it is yours,” Eddie snapped. “I would ask what you’re doing here, but I’ve already got a whole list of reasons alphabetized.”

“Fantastic. Perhaps you’ll list off all the irrelevancies first while I give you a tour? Buy you a drink?”

“Hell no.”

Doom smirked while his eyes flashed a false sense of disappointment. “You don’t trust me?” He crooned sickeningly.

“I wouldn’t trust you with a pair of safety scissors. I guess even people need a vacation from lunacy,” Eddie added, waving a hand around the impressive but still dangerous gambling den. “What’s your excuse?”

“It truly is amazing, Mr. Valiant, the lengths these rubber hose creatures go to in order to find some form of pleasure. Or danger. Or…” Doom shrugged, waving off whatever he was going to list next.

This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. Was this the murderous, fearsome, sadistic chancellor who had about as much sympathy for Toontown as a lion would stalking a sick, one-legged gazelle? Was this the one who had nearly driven him into a nicotine-addicted, drunken retirement after his brother had been the unfair victim of toon logic?

Casinos were an adult’s playground anywhere in the world, and if Doom was getting his high in a place that made Eddie dangerously concerned for what the former did in his downtime, well…

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie glared at the unnecessary read from Doom and crossed his arms. The judge stepped forward, lowering his hat. “Listen son—”

“I am _not_ your son! Don’t ever let that filthy word cross your lips again in my company!” Eddie’s vocal cords practically strangled themselves by the ferocious roar of anger that detonated out of him. “You call yourself a judge? There’s insanity and then there’s you. Wherever the hell this island is, the further away from California you are, the better.”

“You’re certain that’s the right way to see things, Mr. Valiant?”

Clasping his arms behind his back and pacing by the bar, Doom kept his eyes trained on Eddie. Occasionally he would glance at the strange cup bartender and the walking-talking die. Neither of them so much as blinked under his calculating stare and were regarding him like an obedient student would his teacher.

“Mr. Valiant, presiding over a city of Toons hardly makes a difference to how I can execute my goals. Or execute those who break the law. The kinds of principles they abide by and their lucid amounts of insanity need to be restrained.”

“I never pegged you to go after philosophies,” Eddie muttered. “I’m not drunk enough for this, and I’m not tormenting my liver just to reconfigure my brain for the likes of you.”

Doom chuckled. “Mr. Valiant, Inkwell Isle is not Toontown. My jurisdiction here on this island falls on deaf ears, but how do you think the only way to make Toons respect the law works?”

“How do you think I’ll take any answer to your sick questions? I know it’s difficult, but listen to me with both ears. Whatever game you’re trying to tag me in, you’re sore out of luck. I was just leaving.”

The adrenaline of seeing Doom again after so many years steadily wore off, and the throbs of a pre-hangover knocked up and down Eddie’s head. He ignored them and stumbled forward, steering clear of the patrons who he had previously engaged with and sneering at Phear Lap, whose smirk could’ve reached to the whole damn ceiling.

“That’s all right Kingsley. From the smell of him, I’d say it was the booze talking. He’ll come around to sensibility.”

Doom was still running his mouth, the jerk. Eddie had half a mind to go in reverse and bash him in the noggin, but what good would that do? He was already going to have the mother of all headaches in the morning. He didn’t need a broken hand on top of it. He trudged up some mini hill, pausing to stare at the unusual automobiles he swore he hadn’t seen on the way inside. He snickered at the crooked mirrors and wondered if their drivers were going to get them fixed.

Or if they knew they risked getting a ticket cruising down whatever highway Inkwell had. _Toons are incredibly dumb._

“Mr. Valiant, sir?”

 _And they keep getting dumber._ “What do you want, teacup?”

“Um, well sir, it’s actually Mugman. I’m not necessarily a teacup. I was just wondering if you were okay from that ruckus back there. You didn’t seem too—”

“Let me give you some advice kid.” It took Eddie a minute to correctly pinpoint where the bartender was and which of the five illusions swimming in front of him was actually him. “You listening to me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your job is not to get concerned with whatever sorry sap comes around. Drunk or not, rich or not, you sit quietly and pour him a drink like a good boy. Try not to give a damn about my wellbeing or who I talk to, because I’d rather you not get wrapped up in my affairs. You don’t know what you’re betting on. Got me?”

Something deep down in Eddie’s gut was telling him to prepare, whether it be a nasty comeback or his fists. He couldn’t understand why his body was reacting this way and why such violent and intrusive thoughts were bubbling in his skull. They were scathing and hurtful, and the longer he stared down his nose at the teacup − _no, he said his name was Mugman, and he tried to get me to stop drinking…but why didn’t he mind his business? I’m the customer and can get drunk if I please!_

“I said, got me?”

Eddie scowled when Mugman refused to speak. The little porcelain punk had the nerve to smirk in his general direction and shrug, like a child who knew he had the upper hand. Or maybe this was just what he wanted to see? So he could have all the more reason to put him in his place, to show him he needed to respect authority and that he should be grateful to the services that protected his hind and other toons like him.

“Yes, sir.”

The way he finally said it − _he’s mocking me, he’s mocking my name_ − and then he had the nerve to push his arm… _the little bastard!_

Eddie bunched up the front of his shirt and snatched him off the ground with a bit of difficulty. Who knew teacups weighed so much? “Do that again.”

“D-do what again?” He was being smart. “I’ve been saying ‘yes, sir’ and nodding and tapping you for the past few minutes. You didn’t seem to hear me. Are you sure you don’t want me to telephone—”

“Are you sure you want to continue being pretty ungrateful when you’re on mighty thin—”

“You’re drunk.”

“Don’t interrupt me.” _The nerve of this boy._ “You gonna speak your case now?”

Eddie was met with a rebellious silence and a crossing of the arms. In a second he heard a fist connect with a porcelain cheek before he had time to feel it fly, and instantaneous regret razored through his knuckles and burrowed deep in his shoulder. Not because what he had punched was hard as steel, but what shot at him had been unnaturally bright, immensely hot, and out of nowhere.

Eddie’s entire arm was comically pulsating as he dropped the worker, and as if his finger had been a smoking barrel, Mugman calmly blew out the glowing blue tip and crossed his arms tighter.

“Mr. Valiant, I don’t know why you’re here and maybe you’ve got business off the islands, but this isn’t the place you have to be around. You’re better suited for something else, not worth this palace’s time.”

Eddie really wasn’t drunk enough for this. “What in the…what the hell are you? You’re meant to be drunk from! Why are you half…Tommy gun, half whisky?” And did he just say palace? Since when was a gambling hut considered royalty?

“When we became desperate for his kind of work, we’ve had to take care of much harsher things. Please consider yourself lucky.” _We? Who’s we? And why’s he speaking like a cryptic?_ “Mr. Valiant—”

He held up the hand that wasn’t emitting sizzling noises. “If you’re gonna ask me a question, answer mine first. What the hell are you?”

“They’re not kid gloves, Mr. Valiant.” Mugman held up the same hand that had struck the P.I. but held it steady. “This is how we handle things down here in Inkwell. I would think you of all people would appreciate that.”

“I oughta haul you in for assaulting a detective like that.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“By shooting my arm off?”

Mugman sighed and dropped his arms to his sides, presumably shaking off his own short-fused temper when he visibly worried his bottom lip a little too hard. “I shouldn’t even have permission to speak with you,” he muttered, still shaking his head, “but there may be plenty of company and distractions inside that’ll buy us some time yet.”

_Buy us time, desperate, company, permission, lucky._

What the hell was this world and what had Eddie gotten himself into?

“Kid,” he started to mumble, in dire need to sleep everything off in his hotel. Bruises were all over and the biggest one in serious need of some ice was his dignity. “Level with me and stop speaking like some sort of thriller novel if you’ve got something to say. Do you have something to say?”

The P.I. for some reason thought back when the mug had rattled on about the place being a palace, no doubt trying to con him back inside with reverse psychology to face his manager or Doom a second time. A half-impressed smile graced his lips, getting him to think, _I’ll give him points for creativity._ _If I were any more intoxicated, I think I would have listened._

Now if this Mugman fellow thought Eddie was being the smart one now with his unconsciously dumb grin, he did a bang up job not showing it. Instead, at Eddie’s question of is he absolutely had to tell him something important, something necessary, something crucial…

The little blue mug cast a glance up at the top of the building, where the large statue of that furred creature was still smirking at the sky in silent malice. The toon, in common toon fashion when trying to frustrate someone, said no while nodded his head once in yes. And Eddie, not falling for this comical bit, strangely felt genuinely worried that maybe, just maybe, making his presence known in this particular casino was going to have some devilish consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I have done Judge Doom some justice and have not cursed him with OOC. Truth be told, I’ve seen a scattered few clips of Who Framed Roger Rabbit but know the gist of it and how the protagonists/antagonists act. I’ll make it my mission to bless my eyes with this iconic 1988 film soon.


	15. Down Among the Sheltering Palms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally in Miami, more than just the sun heats things up when Alice is under both Bendy and Boris’s eye and an old millionaire starts staring a bit too much for “Daphne’s” liking.

The sprawling gingerbread structure basked in the warm Florida sun, fanned by towering palm trees and lulled by waves breaking lazily on the exclusive beach frontage. Wintertime and the living was easy, fish were jumping, and the market was high.

The hotel bus chugged up the curved driveway toward the main entrance, hauling the Society Syncopators from the station and bouncing the luggage and instruments loaded in the rear. Through the windows, the girls − and because the atmosphere was so contagious, Bendy and Boris too − were singing “Down Among The Sheltering Palms” to pass the time. When the chorus circled around for a seventh standing ovation, the hotel veranda, almost lost in a miniature jungle of exotic shrubs and flowers, rose into view much like the applause and cheer from the band.

“Welcome to Florida girls!” Sally called above the noise.

Bendy and Boris gave each other a knowing look, unable to believe how ripe their luck still was.

On the veranda creaking in their rocking chairs, a dozen elderly gentlemen sat enjoying rare warm February air. White flannels, striped flannels, knickers, Panama hats, white linen caps… Definitely a sight for sore eyes, especially when those eyes were reading the _Wall Street Journal_.

“Sheesh, their combined age must be a thousand,” Bendy muttered when he spotted the group of geezers.

“And their combined bank balance must be about as many millions,” Alice teased, getting Bendy to laugh along with her.

As they heard the bus drawing up, the twelve living bank accounts stopped rocking and lowered their papers like a synchronized act. They peered over their sunglasses and leaned forward in interest, taking in all the pretty pies and curvy cheesecakes. Boris led Alice off the bus first while Bendy was stuck to retrieve the instruments. The wolf sucked in the fragrance as if nothing had ever been so sweet. Those 46 hours on the train had felt like a week, and he had breathed in the recycled powdery air as reluctantly as he did taxes.

“How do you like Florida so far Alice?” He asked the angel hanging off his arm. Gosh was she ever cute, taking in the sights and sounds like a kid.

“It’s beautiful! I’m so excited, I can’t help myself!” She squealed, bouncing on her toes.

“We’re gonna have a gay old time here, won’t we?”

“And how!”

Bendy practically flopped on his face as he struggled to drag out Boris’s bull fiddle. He scowled up at his pal’s smirking face while he was getting sweet with Alice and he was getting sweaty. He circled over to Alice’s side and bitterly held out her ukulele, but Boris took it instead.

“Allow me,” he offered chivalrously.

After the nightmare he’d had and the hangover he had to nurse at the bus station, Boris was going to think gentleman − well, gentlewoman − from now on and stay true to his roots.

Alice beamed. “Thank you Daphne!”

“Yeah, thank you Daphne.” Bendy tossed his saxophone in his arms and let the bass go, taking Alice daringly by the hips as Boris scrambled to hold three instruments. He smirked over his shoulder. “Isn’t she a puppy?”

Glaring hard and fighting back some dogged language, Boris eventually found the balance to precariously carry a sax, bass, and ukulele as he trailed behind. Up ahead, the twelve rich dodos still in their chairs rakishly tipped their hats at the passing ladies.

Bendy nudged Alice’s side once they mounted the steps. “Not so bad up close.”

“Yeah, but I’ll bet there isn’t one here under seventy-five,” she muttered sourly.

“Seventy-five, that’s three quarters of a century. Makes a girl think.”

“Let’s just hope they brought along their grandsons.”

They waved a polite goodbye, barely giving Boris a chance to catch up. He huffed and puffed silently to himself, already weary of the sun and it hadn’t even been three minutes. How would he last three weeks?

“Alice, Brinda, wait—” He stumbled and one of his shoes popped off.

“Pardon me, Miss?” A jaunty old sprite jumped out of his chair, picking up the heel. “May I?”

Boris extended his foot regally. “Help yourself.”

The round old man eagerly slipped the heel back on. He looked a bit younger than the others, but that must have put him in his late fifties, Boris guessed. He wore white plus-fours, argyle socks, two-toned shoes, and a monocle accentuating a gleam in his eye.

“I’m Milburn Rich ‘Uncle’ Monopoly Pennybags”—The man winked, his mustachio rising with his smile—“the first.”

Boris wobbled on his foot. The old cook hadn’t let go. “Cinderella the second,” he grumbled.

“Pardon me for being forward, but I just love a girl with a shapely ankle.”

“I’ll second that.” Boris snatched his foot away when the eager grandpa’s fingers danced a little too high up his leg. “Thank you, sir.”

“Oh, at least let me carry one of those heavy instruments for you, my dear.”

Not needing another word, Boris loaded the man’s impressively strong arms with the trio of jazz makers. “What a sweetheart!”

If Boris had to describe the Seminole-Ritz lobby, he would say it was extremely…resort-y. Potted palms, overhead fans, and a heavy undergrowth of wicker furniture under one roof. He had never had the pleasure of staying in a hotel for long. Most of the time he and Bendy would be squeezed into one room with the rest of the band to save on travel until they were needed, and after their grueling work hours, they’d usually miss out on the complimentary services offered.

Aside from some old beaver tailing him and having small heels pinch his feet, Boris was going to enjoy himself even if it killed him.

“It’s always delightful having young blood around here.”

Goody, he would start by gagging to death. “Quite. I am type O,” Boris played along, speeding over to the elevator.

“It just sends me back, you know, to my times in show business. I’ve always been fascinated by it. It’s cost myself a handsome spot of money.”

”You invest in shows?”

“Show _girls_.” Milburn, or Uncle Pennybags, or Mook the Monopoly Man gave a lighthearted chuckle as his luck rose and Boris’s stomach sank. The elevator doors had shut. “It’s been an adventure in itself, being married seven or eight times.”

Boris’s eyes widened. “You weren’t sure after the third?”

“I can’t say that Mama’s very happy with my hopping around the board.”

“Wouldn’t wonder.”

“She hopes that her packing me off to Florida will steer me in the right direction. Right about now, she trusts I’m out on my yacht.” The second chuckle from the man was more on the perverse side. “Deep-sea fishing.”

Boris pushed him away with his tail. “You had better pull in your reel, Mr. Milburn. You’re barking up the wrong fish.”

“If I promise not to be a naughty boy, what would you say to dinner tonight?”

 _Lovely. Then I could stab my eyes out with my salad fork._ “Tempting, but I’ll be on the band stand.”

“Oh yes, yes, of course! Which of these instruments do you play?”

“Bull fiddle.”

“Fascinating! I love the way it sounds. Do you use a bow or do you just pluck it?”

“Most of the time,” Boris started slow, soft and sizzling, capped by a scowling smile, “I _slap it_.”

Pennybags was absolutely tickled by this. “You must be quite the girl.”

Boris winked and cackled, “Wanna bet?”

“It’s beautiful, your charisma Miss. Reminds me of my last wife. She was an acrobatic dancer, you know, sort of a contortionist. She could smoke a cigarette while holding it between her toes.” Pennybags stared up at the ceiling in wonderment. “If only Mama hadn’t broken it up.”

“Why did she?”

“She doesn’t approve of women who smoke.”

Boris pursed his lips in consideration, wondering how much for a pack of Pennybag repellent at the front desk, when the sweet ding of the elevator made his ears perk up.

“Bye-bye, Mr. Milburn,” he said, grabbing the instruments in one swift move.

“Oh my dear, that’s not the kind of goodbye I’ll allow.” The naughty boy eased himself right beside the wolf, arm around his waist. “All right driver,” he directed the elevator operator, “once around the park slowly, and keep your eyes on the road.”

The doors slid shut with Boris throwing his last look of freedom out the closing space. Outside, the elevator’s arrow graced smoothly past the second floor when it gave out, jiggled violently, and slowly dropped back down to the first.

“What kind of a girl do you think I am?!”

Boris slapped Pennybags fiercely across the face, clamoring for the stairs while he balanced the instruments in one hand and yanked down the lace insertion of his skirt with the other.

Pennybags ran out after him. “Wait Miss, please! It won’t happen again!”

“I’ll say!”

Boris stalked indignantly up the steps, two at a time, in order to reach the fourth floor where the remainder of the girls were billeted. Bellhops were gathered around and bringing up luggage while Doc was fumbling around his breast pocket, muttering about his glasses. Impatient, Sally snatched the clipboard of room assignments and began listing them off − the third and forth listings really souring Bendy’s mood.

“I wish they’d put us in the same room,” Alice sighed out as Bendy escorted her down the hallway. “Just think of all the stories we could tell till midnight.”

“Just think of all the things we could do till midnight,” Bendy agreed quietly, patting the gal’s hand. “Don’t worry, we’ll see a lot of each other on this trip.”

Alice smiled in anticipation, but it quickly dropped as she took in the small door of her new dwellings. “414,” she mused ruefully. “I think that’s the same room number I had in Cincinnati. My last time around with a male band.”

Bendy grinned, a little uneasy. “Was one of the cats a saxophone player?”

“What else?” Alice pressed herself to the wall, reminiscing eyes glazed over. “Was I ever crazy about him. Two in the morning, he kissed me and sent me down for hot dogs and potato salad. They were out of potato salad, so I brought up coleslaw.” Lightning struck those pretty eyes as the singer pushed herself out of her memories. “He called me a good for nothing broad and threw it right in my face.”

“That son of a−!” _Think lady, think lady._ “Er, son of a gun. Alice please, you don’t have to paint things so black anymore. You’ll meet a millionaire in Florida, and a young one, at that.”

Alice shook her head. “What makes you so sure?”

Bendy bopped her cute little nose. “My feminine intuition.”

Giggling at the thought, Alice waved and stepped into her room. Bendy needed a moment to recompose himself, especially after hearing a story like that. He had had his fair share of mood swings in the past, both with his band and the few ladies that wanted private music lessons, but never and he meant _never_ had he made them feel like horse shit if something didn’t go right.

_Over potato salad, now really!_

Bendy entered his and Boris’s room, the ecstatic grin of getting to explore it being stamped with an exasperated frown at the sight of the bellhop still inside. Twitching away an eye roll, he took in the room regardless. Large twin beds, more wicker furniture, and an adjoining bathroom. Outside the French windows was a polished and airy balcony, giving beautiful ocean face.

“Are these your bags?” The small uniformed rabbit asked, gesturing to a couple extra carry-ons.

“Yep, all of ’em. Thank you.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, doll.”

Bendy’s teeth clicked at the nickname. “Guess you want a tip,” he said instead of asking when the rabbit didn’t immediately leave after storing the bags under the beds.

“Forget it doll. After all, you work here, I work here…” Tiny black eyes rolled up and down his figure. “And believe you me, it’s nice to have you with the organization.”

 _Fresh_. “How sweet. Bye now.”

“Say, listen doll, what time do you get off tonight?”

Bendy’s eyes flashed up in suspense. “Tonight? Why?”

The bellhop hopped a little closer. “Lucky for you I’m working the night shift. I got a bottle of gin stashed away, and as soon as there’s a lull…”

“Don’t ya think you’re a little too young for that? Sonny?” Bendy stressed out through grit teeth.

The rabbit stood on his toes, smirking. “You wanna see my driver’s license, then?”

Who the hell did this little punk think he was? Clark Gable? “Get lost!” Bendy snapped, pushing the little squirt out the door.

“That’s the way I like ’em. Big”—His eyes flit down to Bendy’s stuffed chest—“and sassy! Oh, and get rid of your roommate.”

The long-eared rabbit pulled out his bow tie, which was on an elastic, and let it snap back like an exclamation point as he whistled and left the room. Bendy growled under his breath and tore out his brassiere in a fit of blind rage, screaming into it. He started tossing the carry-ons out from under the bed, struggling under the weight of one of them and ultimately getting squashed.

He punched it off when Boris staggered in not a minute later, plopping the instruments on the closest bed and kicking the door shut, breathlessly rambling to himself.

“Dirty, foul, _rotten_ old man!”

“Buddy, what happened?”

“I just got pinched in the elevator!”

“Yeah? Well apparently I got a hot date with Bimbo.”

“ _Bah!_ That nasty pig. You should have seen him,” Boris went on, opening his valise and angrily plucking out a stick of lipstick. “He fed me this line about how many showgirls he’s invested in. I wanted to throw up.”

Bendy shook his head, snatching the very much needed underclothing and joining Boris by the mirror. “Now we know how the other half lives,” he muttered, pulling the front of his dress down and going to work tying it.

“Married seven or eight times… Honestly! Look at me. I’m not even that pretty!”

“They don’t care so long as you’re wearing a skirt. They’re restless. It’s like waving a flag in front of a bull.”

“And I’m sick of being the flag,” Boris stressed between his teeth, flinging off his wig. “I wanna be a bull again. What say you Bendy? Let’s get outta here, let’s blow.”

Bendy squished his fists to his hips, tapping his foot. “Blow where?”

“You promised me the minute we hit Florida, we’d blow this set-up.”

“With what money? We’re broke!”

“We can…w-we can find another band. A _male_ band.” Boris was desperate. Bendy was, too. The thing was it just wasn’t that simple and they both knew it.

Bendy gripped the fussy wolf’s shoulders, shaking them hard. “Look stupid, right now Shere Khan and his chums are out looking for us in every male band in the country. If he so much as sees or hears a saxophone and a bass, we won’t even have the time to see or hear those Tommy guns.”

Boris pressed his paws over his eyes and groaned. “This is so humiliating.”

“So you got pinched in the elevator. Would you rather be picking lead out of your ears?”

“I feel sick. How long are we gonna have to keep this up?”

“Boris-boy, what’s the beef? We’re sitting pretty.” Bendy pulled him over to the window as he spoke, pushing aside the curtains and gesturing out with grandeur. “Ain’t that a view? We get room and board, we get paid every week, there’s the palm trees and the flying fish—”

Boris smacked his arm off. “Fish don’t fly and neither will your act. You wanna stick around just for Alice!”

“Me after Alice?” Bendy exclaimed, tone very holier-than-thou.

“ _You_ after Alice!” Boris confirmed angrily. “You’ve been after the girl the minute you laid eyes on her. I saw you two on that bus, all lovey-dovey and giggling and borrowing each other’s lipstick. I saw you!”

“And I suppose you and her are just like sisters? Wearing nothing but a negligee and nightie, howling with laughter with bourbon and cheese and crackers, surrounded by your girlfriends when she didn’t need to be caught drinking _again!_ ”

“Yeah, we’re just like sisters!”

“Says you!”

A sizzling eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose confrontation ensued, with Bendy having hopped on the bed for more height and Boris taking off his heels, ready to jump and boff the demon silly. A knock at the door, followed by an ‘are you decent’, called for a temporary truce. Boris jammed his wig back on and Bendy fixed up the remainder of his dress.

“Come in,” both called out, sharing one last glare before a puzzled and flustered Doc opened the door.

“Have you girls seen a brown initials with a white bag and my stripe?”

Boris narrowed his eyes. “A what?”

“Uh, m-my brown bag! With my initials on it, and it has a white stripe. It has all of my resort clothes in it.”

Bendy shrugged while Boris shook his head.

“This is just troubling. First I lay my glasses down, and _poof!_ Now one of my suitcases walks off?”

Alice knocked on the door. “Is my ukulele hiding in here?”

“Not her ukulele! There must be a thief hotel in this sneak. Please keep safe girls.”

Alice watched the muttering manager storm off downstairs, looking back to Bendy and Boris in concern. “A sneak thief?”

“I wouldn’t dare let anyone swipe your ukulele honey.” Boris handed over the instrument, shooting Bendy a smug look over his shoulder.

“Thank goodness! Oh, the girls and I wanted to go for a swim. How about it?”

Boris’s tail wagged in approval. “I could use a good dip.”

“How so Daphne? You haven’t got a bathing suit.” Bendy smirked right back and crossed his arms. Checkmate.

“She doesn’t need one. I don’t have one, either,” Alice happily informed with a tiny shrug.

“See? She doesn’t have one.” The boys did a double take at one another, then back down at Alice’s very pronounced curves. “You don’t have one?”

“We can rent some at the bathhouse. Brinda, what about you?”

Bendy was already inside the bathroom, face already wet from scrubbing it hard. “Uh, nah. I’ll stay in and soak in a hot bath,” he called out, tempted to change his mind and dunk his head in ice water.

Alice pouted and peered under the threshold. “Aw, that’s such a waste on a lovely day.”

Boris gently ushered her into the hall, talking fast. “She’s not the strongest swimmer. Let the party pooper soak. More sun and fun for us.”

Bendy poked his head out, a towel wrapped around his wig. “Don’t get burned, _Daphne_.”

“I’ve got suntan lotion,” Alice promised with a smile.

“Yes, and we’ll be fine. She’ll rub it on me, I’ll rub it on her,” Boris added slowly, pushing Bendy backwards by the nose, “and we’ll rub it _all_ on each other. Have a nice soak, _Brinda_.”


	16. Shells and Oil and Yachts, Oh My!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young and wealthy heir has come to Florida, but instead of catching fish, he catches the eye of an impressionable ukulele player.

_“By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea!_   
_You and me, you and me, oh how happy we’ll be!”_

To the accompaniment of the short and sweet summer [tune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTpLFYbwbEw), several of the girls from the band in bathing suits and caps ran into the surf. The remaining girls were already splashing and frolicking like a school of playful porpoises, giggling and swimming. Twirling around up to her waist, Alice cupped the blue drops to toss over her head, her laughter suddenly cut off by a startled squeal.

“ _Daphne!_ ” She slapped the surface of the water behind her, cheeks swelling with a grin. “Cut that out!”

Right behind her, a rubber cap surfaced and a freckled muzzle spout water like a dolphin. “Got’cha, honey!” Boris exclaimed.

“You’re so silly! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Just a little trick I picked up in the elevator.” A good-sized wave rolled in. “Uh-oh, here comes a big one!”

Holding onto her tightly, Boris and Alice were swept off their feet as the wave broke over them, pushing them further towards shore. A few of the girls had already scampered out the water, Nell tossing a ball over to Fifi as Boris and Alice came up behind them, running up to the beach hand in hand.

“Gee Daphne, I had no idea you were such a big girl,” Alice commented, studying his broad built as she put on a short terry-cloth jacket.

“Oh Alice, that’s nothing. You should have seen me before I went on a diet.”

A nearby Fanny looked the wolf up and down. “But just look at those shoulders, and your arms and legs!”

Boris rubbed himself off with a towel while hitting water out his ear with the other hand. “Carrying around the bull fiddle all day helps,” he joked.

“I envy you. You’re so flat-chested.” Alarmed at Betty’s comment, Boris gazed down at his front. “Clothes hang so much better on you than they do on me. I’d give anything for slim and pretty.”

“You’re already very pretty. If anything, the only girl who should be envying me is Brinda.” Boris snickered and brought the girls closer. “I’ll bet she wishes right now she was as flat-chested as me, and a little more humble on the hips.”

Alice playfully smacked his shoulder, giggling into her palm. “Brinda is gorgeous,” she said once she could speak again.

“I’ll bet she’s had thousands of fellas throw themselves at her feet,” Fanny added with a touch of awe and spite.

Boris smirked. “I wouldn’t say thousands of _fellas_. Bet the little devil doesn’t even—”

“Heads up, Daphne!”

Something thwacked Boris’s backside, making the girls giggle harder than before. Alice and Fanny took either paw as Betty grabbed the beach ball.

“Daphne, come on, let’s play!” Alice suggested with a tug.

The four barely paid mind to the gentlemen who tipped his yachting cap their way when they blindly rushed past him, but the latter wasn’t too bothered by this and kept his casual gait along the beach, flannel slacks kicking up the sand and gloves anxiously tapping a rolled up copy of the _Wall Street Journal_. 

A skinny brunette with weathered eyes and arms full of a moody toddler cocked her head to the side. “Junior, come along now. It’s time for your nap.”

“Nah, I wanna play!”

“You heard your mudder, Junior. Scram.” The five-year-old stared up at eight gold buttons glinting dangerously off from a blazer. “This beach ain’t big enough for the both of us.” He raised a hand as if to strike his behind. “ _Get outta here…_ ”

The child scrambled to his feet, screaming for his mother and leaving a pailful of shells behind. The sparky gent snatched off his silk scarf to dust off the basket chair of sand, and sorting through the seashells left behind and fanning himself with the paper, he curiously watched the girls that had passed him, tossing a beach ball around and chanting rhythmically:

“I like coffee, I like tea, how many boys are stuck on me? One, two, three, four, five—”

A wild throw over one of the blonde’s head in the direction of his chair was practically fate; the _Wall Street Journal_ unfolded in his face and his foot extended a couple inches out − enough to trip a girl and send her sprawling to the sand.

The man sprung to his feet, stock market forgotten. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry!”

“No, no, it was my fault,” the girl laughed out, adjusting her swimsuit.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I don’t think so.” The man feverishly dusted off her legs, arms, shoulders, back. “R-really sir, I’m fine.”

“Sorry, it’s just an anxious tic of mine. I just wish you’d make sure.”

“Why?”

“Usually when people find out who I am, there’s a wheelchair, a shyster lawyer, and a quarter of a million dollars down the drain faster than you can say ‘stocks and bonds’.”

The blonde smiled almost shyly. “I won’t sue you, no matter who you are.”

He tipped his hat and returned to his paper. “Much appreciated.”

The girl almost dumbly felt around for the ball, for her eyes were permanently glued to the cap and stunning blazer. “Who are you?”

A blasé flip of a page. “No one important.”

“Alice! Come on, we’re waiting for you!” Came the call from an impatient and tall girlfriend.

“Better not keep them waiting.” Still engrossed in the paper, the man waved. “Cheerio.”

He could just about feel the hesitation for a few seconds before he saw a shadow toss the ball and felt curls brush against his fist to peer over the paper.

“I don’t mean to stare, but haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

“I’ve got a face like everybody else. Not very likely.”

“Are you staying at the hotel?”

“I haven’t the need.”

The girl’s pout was too adorable, half-troubled and half-desperate for answers. “I’m sorry, it’s just… Your face is so familiar. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“It’s possible you’ve seen it plastered over newspapers or magazines.”

“That must be it! _Vanity Fair_. I read it all the time before I go to bed.”

“Yes, reading is fundamental.” The gent gestured to the side. “Would you mind stepping back a bit? You’re dazzling, but I have other things to look at.”

The girl titled her head. “Like what?”

“They run up a red-and-white flag on the yacht when it’s time for cocktails. Couldn’t possibly miss it.”

“Your yacht?” She whirled around seaward at a half-a-dozen ships of various sizes bobbing in the distance and eagerly pointed to the first one in sight. “Is it that one? The big one?”

The man’s already bugged out eyes couldn’t have grown any wider. “Certainly not! With all the unrest in the world, nobody should have a yacht that sleeps more than twelve.”

“I quite agree. That little flag you mentioned, tell me, who runs it up − your wife?”

“No, my flag steward.”

“And who mixes the cocktails − your wife?”

“No, my cocktail steward.” The newspaper was temporarily folded off to the side. “Now young lady, if you’re interested in whether I’m married or not—”

“I’m not interested.”

“Well for your information, I’m not.”

The blonde’s smile spread like melted butter. “That’s very interesting.” She peered once more over his shoulder. “Anything good with the stock market?”

“Straight as an arrow. Up, up, up.”

“I’ll bet while we were talking, you probably made a little over $100,000.”

“Do you play the market?”

“No, the ukulele. I sing some, too.”

The young man chuckled at the answer. “For your own amusement, I presume?”

“Sort of. A group of us girls were invited to the hotel. Swingin’ Sally and Her Society Syncopators. Maybe you’ve heard of us?” She added giddily.

“You’re society girls?”

“Um, ye-es, quite proper and such. You know the rundown; Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Harvard. We’re only doing this for a lark.”

“You mentioned syncopators. Does that mean you all play that very fast music? Jazz?” He spit out the word like it was a tongue twister.

With a snap of her fingers and an undoubtedly swell cat accent, she exclaimed, “Yeah, real hot!”

A bit disinterested, the gent glanced down at his paper. “I suppose some like it hot. I personally prefer my classical music.”

“So do I!” The blonde heartily agreed, not skipping a beat. “Give me Bach any day. As a matter of fact, I spent three years at the Sheboygan Conservatory of Music. Top of my class.”

The man slowly smiled. “Very good school. Your family must be on board to such a loud transition of your career, Sheboygan to syncopators.”

“Not at all. Daddy threatened to cut me off without a cent. But I don’t care, because it was such a bore, you know, coming-out parties, cotillions…”

“Inauguration balls?”

“Opening of the Opera!”

“Riding to hounds.”

“And always the same Four Hundred,” the little lady finished with a bored roll of the eye.

“I must apologize, I…” The capped man leaned forward. “It’s amazing we’ve never run into each other before. For someone as attractive as you, you would have jogged my memory instantly Miss…?”

“Alice Angel.”

Her tiny palm was kissed. “They call me Junior.”

“Junior. What a name. I’ll bet you’re very gentle, and so helpless.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Just a little theory I have about men who wear glasses.” Alice adjusted them from slipping off and nearly filled in the gap, eyes shining. “Maybe I’ll tell you when I know you a little better. Say Junior, what are you doing tonight?”

“Why do you ask?”

“If you’re not busy with your cocktails and yacht, I thought you might like to come up to the hotel and hear us play.”

“Oh, well I…”

“Alice!” The ball game had already broken up without her and Boris was approaching the pair, waving. “Come on, it’s time to change for dinner.”

Alice shook her head. “Run along, Daphne. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Suit yourself.”

With a casual glance down, the wolf skipped a couple steps away, then promptly froze, staggered backwards, and gawked at the young stranger open-mouthed. Any wider and his jaw would have fallen off.

“I can’t believe…”

The man stared right back, eyes narrowed. “What is it, young lady? What are you staring at?”

“You…I can’t believe _y-you…!_ ”

“I know, I recognized him, too,” Alice spoke up, taking Boris’s arm. “I was starstruck, too. Let’s not crowd him now. Did you see his picture in last issue’s _Vanity Fair_?”

Boris scoffed. “I’m afraid I’m subscribed to another magazine.”

“Would you mind moving along, please?”

Alice tugged Boris backwards, causing him to stumble. “Yes, you’re in his way! He’s waiting for a signal from his yacht to raise his red-and-white flag for cocktails. He couldn’t possibly miss it.”

“His yacht? Does he play with it in the bathtub?”

Alice nudged his side and shushed him. “Junior, this is my girlfriend, Daphne. Don’t worry; she’s a very lovely Vassar girl once you get to know her.”

Boris actually yipped aloud as if his tail had been kicked and did a double take. “I’m a _what?_ ”

“Or was it Bryn Mawr?” Alice continued to ramble, actually kicking him in the rear and giving him a pleading look.

The yachting man slowly gave the two a cutting onceover before sighing under his breath. “Odd bunch,“ he admitted, though he tipped his hat and began to rise. “But it was delightful meeting you both. I really must be heading off now. Meeting in five minutes.”

“And you’ll come to hear us play?” Alice squeaked, staring after the parting gentleman and squeezing Boris’s arm. “It’ll be berries!”

“Yes, please do come,” Boris called after him. “Don’t disappoint us girls.”

Junior chuckled over his shoulder. “I’ll try and see to it that my agenda is crystal clear for the evening.” He quirked his mouth towards Boris, sending chills down his spine when he finished with, “And that I’ll have no ugly disruptions before then.”


End file.
